LA Chargers: Why the Tampa Bay Buccaneers are a nightmare matchup
By Jason Reed
(Kim Klement-USA TODAY Sports) – LA Chargers
The LA Chargers do not match up very well against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
Half of the battle in an NFL game is predicated on pure talent — the other half is predicated on how the two teams match up with each other. Unfortunately for the LA Chargers, they do not match up very well against their Week 4 opponent, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
The Chargers really need a win here as well. A 1-3 start could be disastrous for the team, especially with how banged up the Chargers are.
The Bucs have their fair share of injuries as well. Chris Godwin, Leonard Fournette, Scotty Miller and Jason Pierre-Paul al did not participate in Thursday’s practice. However, even with those injuries, the Bolts match up very poorly with the Bucs.
Here is why.
1. The Tampa Bay Buccaneers’ tight ends can expose the defense’s hole
The one area of the defense that is exploitable on the LA Chargers is the middle of the field. Chris Harris has not been fantastic at slot corner and is injured for this game and the linebacker unit is beat up and is not fantastic in pass coverage.
With Derwin James not there to help, we have seen teams take advantage. Travis Kelce had a solid game in Week 2 and the Panthers were feeding the ball to the middle of the field to move the chains.
That is going to be a problem against Tampa Bay. I am not going to sit here and pretend that Rob Gronkowski is some elite tight end any more but the Bucs do have a trio of Gronk, Cameron Brate and O.J. Howard. That is really good and gives the team several options to attack the weak part of the Chargers’ defense.
Also, it does not help that the team is going to be without Melvin Ingram, so it will be harder to get pressure on Tom Brady.