Chargers coach Anthony Lynn definitely deserves some of the blame ... but not all of it.
It seems like every week the Chargers find a new and exciting way to raise their own degree of difficulty and Week 14 was no different. With 22 seconds left in the first half and the ball on the Falcons’ 8-yard-line, Los Angeles decided to run it on third-and-1.
When the refs marked Kalen Ballage short of the first down, all hell broke loose. Justin Herbert, seemingly unaware of the new down and distance, organized the offense for what would have been a fourth-down play. Meanwhile, the Chargers’ field goal team just paraded onto the field while the offense was still trying to line up.
It was a complete and utter disaster, and Anthony Lynn, who’s been botching routine situations all season, was immediately blamed by Twitter. Given this coaching staff’s track record with game management, it was easy to pile on.
Lynn, himself, shifted the blame to his offensive coordinator Shane Steichen, who called the run play. Here was Lynn’s take on the matter from the postgame presser.
Via The Orange County Register:
“You cannot run the ball in that situation,” Lynn said. “You just can’t. We try to be aggressive, but you can’t run the ball in that situation and that right there that’s an area where we’ve got to improve as a coaching staff, communication-wise, and we will, but you cannot run the ball there.”
I don’t know if I agree with Lynn there. While a pass was probably preferable in that situation, the run call wasn’t really the problem. It was the disorganization that led to a missed opportunity for points. And any disorganization ultimately falls on the head coach.
But there is an explanation for that disorganization that I do think absolves the Chargers a bit. And that’s the awful spot by the referees, which turned what should have been a first down for Los Angeles into a fourth-down situation.
I can’t blame the offense for thinking that they had a fresh set of downs after Ballage made it to the line to gain. Go back and watch the video of the play with the audio on. Even the commentator thought Ballage picked up the first!
At the very least, it was close enough to trigger a review or even just a measurement, which would have provided the Chargers with more than enough time to get the field goal unit out there.
Now, maybe a more prepared coaching staff overcomes a mistake by the refs and still gets those three points, but the referees do deserve a little more blame for the mess we saw at the end of the half.
Luckily for the Chargers, they were playing the only team in the league better at turning sure wins into losses and the Falcons, as they’re wont to do, found a way to lose the game and establish themselves as the NFL’s least reliable team.
