SAN DIEGO-Pain and payback. Another Monday Night Football game. Another heartbreak ending for the San Diego Chargers. Another prime time game, one more unexplained finish.
All things considered, the fight was in there for the Chargers against the Chicago Bears. The energy was there. Their hearts were all in the game. It simply wasn’t enough. In the end, the Chargers didn’t make enough plays down the stretch against the Bears when it mattered.
And it cost them another potential home win.
With their bye week upon them, the Chargers will have time to regroup for the second half of their season and think about turning a 16-7 fourth quarter lead into a 22-19 defeat to the Bears. For three quarters, the Chargers defense looked as if they would secure the unit’s most satisfying outing, getting in Jay Cutler’s grill all night and harassing him into a couple of bad turnovers.
They even got a gift pick six when cornerback Jason Verrett raced down the sideline for a 68-yard interception return touchdown after he outfought Bears’ wide receiver Alshon Jeffery for position and the ball. The trouble with all the superlative heaped on the Chargers’ defense is that you need four quarters to close the deal, not three.
This is where the Chargers ran into problems. Again. In Week 5, the Chargers watched as Mike Vick directed the Pittsburgh Steelers to a last-gasp, 24-20 win with no time left on the clock. This time around, it was another well-seasoned veteran who burned them.
Cutler led the Bears on a 10-play, 80-yard drive that ended with tight end Zach Miller hauling in a 25-yard touchdown pass to give Chicago the final lead of the night. With 3:19 left in the game, the Chargers had plenty of time to get into field position for at least a game-tying field goal, which could have sent the game into overtime.
Unfortunately for the Chargers, there wasn’t enough magic left in the right arm of Philip Rivers to pull out a victory. Nonetheless, the 15 points the Chargers surrendered in the final period wound up being the achilles heel that handed San Diego its fifth straight defeat.
A tough defeat it was. But this loss can’t be painted on the Chargers defense entirely. The Bears have a pretty good defense themselves. Chicago is ranked ninth overall in the league in total defense, so it was wasn’t like Rivers and his offensive unit were going up against some scrubs on the other side of the ball.
Chicago snuffed out the Chargers run game, holding San Diego to just 77 yards on the ground. Meanwhile, they had a pretty decent evening containing Rivers, who leads the NFL in passing. With team-leading receiver Keenan Allen out, Rivers completed just 26 of 42 passes for 280 yards. In short, the Bears put a blanket on Rivers and the Chargers’ passing attack.
Missing Allen was telling. Rivers only completed one pass beyond 15 yards, and that was a 40-yard reception to Gates in the fourth quarter. With a healthy Allen in the lineup, the Chargers may have been able to stretch the field a little bit more.
For a while, Allen’s absence had little impact on what the Chargers, especially in the first half, when they clung to 13-0 and 16-7 leads.
The Bears, on the other hand, was bumbling and stumbling all over themselves with a missed field goal, a fumble and an interception returned for a touchdown. Chicago’s first two drive of the game looked promising, but San Diego’s defense stepped up and forced a missed field goal attempt and knocked the ball out of Cutler’s hands for a turnover.
Cutler fumbled while being sacked by Melvin Ingram. Eric Weddle recovered the ball but the Chargers did nothing with it. The Chargers would cash in a little bit later when Verrett took Cutler’s sideline pass to the house to give the Chargers a 13-0 cushion in the second quarter. But, like an old gunslinger, Cutler and the Bears responded.
On the very next play from scrimmage, Cutler went right back at Verrett, completing a 47-yard pass to Jeffery. Verrett and Jeffery proved to be the matchup of the night with the Bears wide receiver winning the individual battle against San Diego’s defensive back. Out of the 16 times Cutler threw the ball his way, Jeffery snagged in 10 passes for 151 yards.
Dennis has covered and written about politics, crime, race, sports, and entertainment. Dennis currently covers the NFL, MLB, NBA, NCAA, and Olympic sports. Dennis is the editor of News4usonline.com and serves as the publisher of the Compton Bulletin newspaper. He earned a journalism degree from Howard University. Email Dennis at dfreeman@news4usonline.com