Chargers 24 - 16 Raiders

Well I'd say that went well. 13 straight wins against the Silver and Black and the game wasn't nearly as close as the scoreboard made it look.

Rivers looked excellent, completing upwards of 65% of his passes and consistently hitting Jackson, Floyd, and Gates for deep balls. His one interception came off a pass that Jackson should have caught and he played  much better than his 1 touchdown and 16 completions would indicate. The number to look at here is 13.6. That's our QB's yards per completion this season and it's the best in the NFL. It shows that Philip Rivers is becoming the premier deep ball thrower in the NFL with the help of possibly the league's best core of receivers. There simply weren't enough touchdowns to go around in this game and our next subject happened to get most of them.

LT looked good but only averaged 3.1 yards per carry. Now this one I tend to think has a lot more to do with the offensive line. Tomlinson couldn't get anything on the edges, which is usually his forte. We'll see if this happens again next week against a Giants defense that's a lot stronger in the middle than the outside, but I tend to think it was just a bad day for the O-line. The imminent return of Hardwick should help this.

On a related note... The Wild Frog! That's right folks, the Chargers - owners of two of the best running backs in the NFL - have finally unveiled their version of the famed Wildcat. Tomlinson scored off a direct snap in the first quarter for the Chargers' first score of the game. The Wild Frog differs from the traditional Wildcat in that it does not actually involve two running backs. LT lines up in the shotgun and takes the snap with Hester at fullback. Rivers and Jackson are split out wide with Brandon Manumaleuna and Gates at tight end and Malcolm Floyd in the slot. Turner admits to being nervous about splitting Rivers out and opening him up to hits, so we may see this evolve to include Sproles or Chambers/Naanee in the near future. But the point is with the Chargers' recent woes in the red zone and the success of the Wild Frog, it's likely we will be seeing this around the goal line again.

On the other side of the ball we finally saw the Lights Out dance. In fact, we saw it twice. Merriman and Phillips were all over the place today, and the linebackers are starting to look like their old formidable selves. There's no word yet on the status of Tim Dobbins but given that he was back out on the sidelines in uniform later in the game I'm trying to believe he'll be OK. Brandon Silar is decent and performed admirably in Dobbins' absence but Kevin Burnett should be back soon and will play over Silar regardless.

Wild Frog makes its debut [Chargers.com]