Chargers Week 2 power rankings from around the web
By Travis Wakeman
The San Diego Chargers weren’t getting a lot of love around the internet from the various sites that conduct power rankings prior to the season, but what do those rankers think of the team after its performance in Week 1 against Kansas City?
On one hand, you had a team that took a 21-3 lead in one of the league’s most hostile environments, only to completely fold and give the game away in overtime.
Though power rankings mean nothing in the grand scheme of things, it is a good way to drum of some debate. So, I’ve scoured several different sites to see where they put the Chargers heading into Week 2.
ESPN has the Chargers in the No. 25 slot, noting that the team looked better running the ball, but the defense is a liability. Apparently, they didn’t want to put the loss to Kansas City on the coaching staff.
ESPN also has four AFC teams ranked below the Chargers—the Tennessee Titans, Buffalo Bills, Miami Dolphins and Cleveland Browns.
Elliott Harrison doesn’t feel too positive about the Chargers, ranking them near the bottom of the list. He cites the injury to Keenan Allen and the blown 21-point lead as reasons to put the team there and he’s not wrong.
He lists the Browns as the only AFC team worse than the Chargers.
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Chris Burke of Sports Illustrated ranks the Chargers one notch higher than Harrison, but he doesn’t have anything more positive to say. In fact, here were his words.
Rather than watch the remaining 15 games, Chargers fans, might I suggest queuing up a loop of Sunday’s first half instead? Let that become your reality. Blowing a 21-point advantage to lose in overtime was one thing; seeing Keenan Allen fall with a season-ending knee injury was another. It could be a long four months.
Chris Simms of Bleacher Report (yes, the son of Phil Simms and former quarterback for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers) unveiled his Week 2 list and put the Chargers in the No. 29 spot.
There will probably be a lot of you saying “What does Chris Simms know”, but his ranking was pretty consistent with the other lists out there.
“It won’t be easy getting over that loss to the Chiefs. They flat out blew it.”
That was Pete Prisco’s quick summary of he Chargers and while it’s all pretty much common sense and he did have more to say about basically every other team, he also likes the Chargers more than any of the other analysts listed, putting them at No. 24 on his list.
Is that encouraging or was he just in a good mood?
Where would you rank the Chargers after Week 1? More importantly, where do you think the team will be on these lists after this week’s game against the Jacksonville Jaguars? Let us know in the comments section below.