Chargers need to find their defensive identity

The defenses on the two teams that are going to the Super Bowl are off the charts. It is awesome to see those teams hit and get after the quarterback. Tom Brady was beat up at the end of the game. The Cards were getting blown up on hits. The Chargers need a little something like that. The Chargers need to have that type of defense to go with their solid quarterback Philip Rivers.

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Peyton Manning is going to the Super Bowl again, but this is the best defense that he has ever been a part of and it will give him a golden opportunity to put another championship ring on his hand.

The Chargers need to build up their defense to that standard. They need to get aggressive and make big things happen. They are getting more and more pieces on that side of the ball from the draft and this draft could bring another top talent.

The two Super Bowl teams have some very familiar men running their defenses. Wade Phillips used to run that Chargers defense that was aggressive and got after the quarterback. He is one of my favorite defensive coaches and when he was available I was hoping that we would get after him. He now is running a solid squad in Denver.

Ron Rivera runs the Carolina Panthers and we had him calling the defense under Norv Turner. What we could have had as a head coach! Rivera could have been the man calling the shots for the Chargers if we were to drop Norv in the middle of the year. Instead we stuck around with him a little too long.

Our current defensive coordinator has worked with both men. He has his own style of coaching a defense and we still are waiting to see his aggressiveness shine. There are times that we see a brilliant gameplan put together by Pagano, but then we see a soft zone put out in the next week. Pagano has had the time to put his stamp on the defense, but we still don’t know what to expect from that side of the ball in each game.

He needs to step up with the defense. Denzel Perryman looks like a force in the middle. Melvin Ingram just finished with double digits in the sack game and has shown flashes with his talent. Jason Verrett is a Pro Bowl level corner. Manti Te’o has a great nose to the football. There are pieces that are there.

The only signature that I have from Pagano at this point is that he starts out the season slow and finishes strong. He needs to have that level of excellence right off of the jump or there could be a lot of people looking for jobs at the end of the year. This defense needs to play at a Super Bowl level, especially if Joey Bosa finds his way onto the roster.