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Chargers’ ‘fumble luck’ isn’t assured

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The Chargers are recovering fumbles at a very high rate. The ball hits the ground, it’s theirs.

Their recovery rate is 82 percent (9 for 11); average rates for NFL teams hover near 50 percent each season.

San Diego’s offense got back all five of its fumbles, including three versus the Seahawks.

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In practices, Mike McCoy yells “run to the ball.” Still, players can’t know how a football will bounce.

“Sometimes in order to be good, you’ve got to have some luck on your side,” McCoy said Wednesday.

Hazardous duty

On top of doing his main tasks well, Philip Rivers has retrieved each of the team’s three snap-related fumbles.

But that’s a dangerous way to live.

Diving for a muffed snap, for example, the $91 million quarterback exposed his right arm to a pair of converging Seahawks linemen just before he surrounded the ball and they landed on him. Paying a price for his second fumble in the same game, Ryan Mathews suffered a knee sprain when Eddie Royal jumped on him while recovering the ball.

All three of the snap-related fumbles came after Rivers lost his longtime center, Nick Hardwick, to season-ending injury in Game 1. Praising Hardwick’s replacements Rich Ohrnberger and Doug Legursky, Rivers also said it takes time for center and QB to mesh.

“I don’t want to make it sound bigger than it is, but it’s not easy,” he said.

Clean it up

McCoy frowned at mention of the three fumbles off snaps.

“One’s high to me,” he said. “One is too many.”

“Quarterback-center exchange is how football starts every play,” said the coach, a former quarterback. “It’s gonna happen. It’s part of the game. But it can’t happen. We’ve got to figure it out. That’s three mistakes we’ve made in games, and we’ve got to clean it up. We’ve got to eliminate it.”

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