Very Special Teams

Every week after a Chargers loss, I feel like, in order to come to grips with it, I need to put a blame on someone. This week my blame goes to the defensive special teams, whose lethargic play allowed the Broncos' Eddie Royal to become only the 11th man in NFL history to return a punt and a kickoff for a touchdown. Mike Scifres, who throughout his tenure with the Chargers, has been a consistent and powerful kicker, punted three times last night, two of which were less than fifty yards, and one of those being that which was returned for a 71 yard touchdown return.

For once this season however, the Chargers first half defense actually held their own, allowing only 3 points. Granted, they didn't have too much time on the field because of the special teams, but they still looked pretty solid. However, the Chargers defense fell apart, in typical fashion, and allowed Kyle Orton and the Broncos to out score them in the second half 17 to 3.

The team that was a pre-season super bowl favorite is slowly fading, and now as the Chargers are faced with a lowly 2-3 record, 3.5 games behind the Broncos in the AFC West, they have some serious soul searching and re-tooling to do if they want to even consider a post season birth.