After a horrific first half in which the situation seemed to be unraveling in ways that were all too familiar to Chargers fans, San Diego's offense woke up in the second half, scoring 17 unanswered points and allowing the Chargers to come out of Week 1 with the win. At least initially, Chargers fans watched in utter disbelief as Percy Harvin ran the opening kickoff back 103 yards for the score. Adding insult to injury was the fact that kicker Nate Kaeding was injured on the play. Kaeding left the game on a cart and would not return.
Minnesota's defense came out fired up, managing to get into Phillip Rivers' head early, and dominating the Chargers offense through the majority the first half. At least early on, the Vikings had done an exceptional job of limiting Rivers' options downfield. The clearly frustrated quarterback was forced to take the short, dump-off passes underneath to the outlet receiver no less than 12 times for 130 yards.
One of the lone bright spots of the entire first half for San Diego came when linebacker Shaun Phillips deflected a Donovan McNabb pass to himself, coming down with the ball for the pick inside the Vikings 5-yard line. Tolbert took it to the house two plays later, reducing the Vikings lead to three.
Later in the second quarter, the Vikings capped of a solid if not spectacular first half with a three-play, 50-yard touchdown drive, built on a 46-yard running play by RB Adrian Peterson, improving Minnesota's lead to 17-7. Little did anyone know at the time, though, that the three-yard touchdown pass from McNabb to receiver Michael Jenkins would turn out to be the last time the Vikings offense would even sniff the end zone.
Aside from the break down on defense that allowed Peterson to break the 46-yard run that led to Minnesota's final touchdown, the Chargers defense was nearly perfect. After giving up almost 300 yards to Peterson during the team's last meeting, Greg Manusky's defense managed to hold Peterson under 100 yards rushing on the afternoon. Donovan McNabb would finish the day an abysmal 7 of 15 for just 39 yards through the air.
As well as San Diego's defense had played throughout the game, the Chargers offense was clearly out of sync during the first half. Rivers was hurried and harassed into throwing two interceptions and there seemed to be too few options open downfield, even when Rivers did have enough time to get the ball off. Out of four offensive drives into the Minnesota red zone during the first 30 minutes of play, the Chargers only managed to come out with three points.
Punter Mike Scifres is probably thinking he should have asked for more money when he signed his recent contract extension with the Chargers. With Kaeding out, Scifres was forced to fill in on kickoffs and field goals. Scifres was perfect , hitting on his first career field goal attempt, a low flying wobbler that was good from 40-yards out, and going 3 for 3 on extra point attempts.
However, going into the locker room at halftime, the situation looked bleak for San Diego and it appeared as though the Chargers might very well be on there way to a fifth slow start in five years under head coach Norv Turner.
Source: http://bleacherreport.com/articles/845495-san-diego-chargers-2011-season-opener-a-tale-of-two-halves
Andrew Brackman A.J. Burnett Steve Garrison Phil Hughes Damaso Marte Mariano Rivera
Keine Kommentare:
Kommentar veröffentlichen