Down two points with a little over a minute to play and all three timeouts, the Chargers had the opportunity to leave Oakland with a victory in the last game that’ll be played in the Coliseum.
But quarterback Philip Rivers came up empty-handed in what was one of their worst drives in recent memory.
On eight attempts, Rivers failed to produce a single yard. The veteran quarterback threw the ball on all plays and each one of them fell incomplete, with the exception of the last throw, which was picked off by safety Karl Joseph.
Instead of quick passes to gain some positive yardage, Rivers decided to go for the long ball on half of his throws. It was evident that he had some of his receivers open underneath, but instead was acting like the time had no timeouts remaining and they had half the amount of time to play.
Coach Anthony Lynn was quick to recognize that there wasn’t any need for Rivers to throw up prayers.
“If you watch the film and you look at those plays, you have short routes, you have intermediate routes and you have long routes. We had options there. We didn’t have to throw the ball down the field,” Lynn said.
L.A. could have ran the ball on a couple of plays since Oakland struggled to slow down running back Melvin Gordon, but they elected to put the game in Rivers’ hands.
“Yeah, you can work a run play in there, but I think where we started out, we were trying to get a quick completion to get the drive started, and hell, we never got the drive started,” Lynn said.
There’s no other player more to blame for the Chargers’ loss to Raiders than Rivers. Sitting at 4-6, he’s certainly a reason why they’ve dropped the amount of games they have this season. His struggles have many people doubting his future with the team.
“I don’t have that luxury right now to think beyond the season. It’s one week at a time for me. Philip is our starting quarterback. I’m trying to figure out how to win the next game with him,” Lynn said.
