Lacking Mathews, how will Chargers adjust?
Chargers running back Ryan Mathews will be inactive Sunday, and that’s a new development for coach Mike McCoy and playcaller Frank Reich.
Mathews, the team’s top rusher since McCoy arrived, was active for all 18 games last year and two more to start this season.
As Mathews recovers from the knee injury suffered last Sunday, the Chargers (1-1) are expected to activate rookie Branden Oliver as the backup to veterans Danny Woodhead and Donald Brown for Sunday’s game against the Bills (2-0).
If San Diego’s paltry 2.5 yards per rush is the telltale, Philip Rivers’ right arm will decide the offense’s fate, but McCoy reiterated this week that the Chargers’ operation is bigger than any one player.
“When you go out and you build your roster and you do certain things, you get players that fit your system,” he said.
The next step is to prepare them all.
In McCoy’s first spring camp, backups got more premium practice work than tackle Max Starks could recall with any of his nine Pittsburgh Steelers or four Florida Gators teams. As a former quarterback, McCoy believes that all of the team’s blockers should understand not just their assignments, but everybody else’s on the offense.
The running backs are expected to grasp many plays, not only the ones that suit their strengths.
“There are certain plays that a certain back might run better than others,” McCoy said. “But then again, if the game is on the line and it’s third-and-1, and Frank wants to call a certain play, and that’s the way we designed it, and in this case something might happen in the game like the other day with Ryan, and he goes down, well, if the best play on third-and-1 is this play, that’s what we’re going to run. And I think we have backs that can do that and are very flexible.”
Reich knows firsthand how the loss of a standout player can impact an offense. He was a backup to Hall of Fame quarterback Jim Kelly on Buffalo’s four Super Bowl teams. In place of the injured Kelly, it was Reich who engineered the biggest comeback in NFL history 21 years ago. In the same stadium, the Chargers will play Sunday.
Reich said the loss of an impact starter “kind of brings out the best in everybody else, not only the other runners who step up in place for him but really the whole team. You rally around each other. So that’s what I expect from this week. We’ll rally around the fact that we miss Ryan. We’ve got some pretty talented backs behind him. So, I think we’ll be in good shape.”
The Charger sputtered, though, the last time Mathews was absent for more than a half. With Mathews limited to one quarter by an ankle injury in the AFC Divisional last January, they went scoreless until the fourth quarter. Matthews sprained the ankle Game 15. He remained in the lineup the next three games, but was increasingly limited.
Antonio Gates suggested after the loss at Denver that throwing more passes early in the game may have worked better. Reich, then the quarterbacks coach and understudy to playcaller Ken Whisenhunt, said windy conditions influenced the ground-oriented approach.
This season began with a poor rushing performance: seven negative rushes, 52 yards net and 2.2 yards per carry. Mathews was healthy, and, after Reich lined him up at at fullback for the first time in his life, broke two tackles on a 20-yard scoring run. But Cardinals linebacker Larry Foote, one of the NFL’s best at diagnosing plays, blew up several plays. Reich said Foote may have benefited from the home crowd’s effect on Chargers communications.
In the opener, Mathews (12 for 40) and Rivers (2 for 10) were the leading rushers.
The Chargers came back with 101 yards rushing in the 30-21 victory over the Super Bowl champion Seahawks. The leaders were Woodhead (8-32), Mathews (11-31) and Brown (7-21).
San Diego’s 2.5-yard average, tied with Jacksonville, ranks last in the NFL.
But an NFL-best 5.0-yards per rush hasn’t prevented Tampa Bay (0-3) from having the league’s worst record. Tied for ninth in rushing attempts, the Chargers are requiring opponents to defend the run.
“We’re striving each week to get better in the running game,” Reich said Thursday. “We want to make strides this week. When you have good players up front in the line and as backs, those things have a way of averaging themselves out to where they should be by the end of the season.”
