LA Chargers: The great, good and ugly in win over New York Jets

The good:

Kalen Ballage’s efforts:

Kalen Ballage was pretty solid in this game. He did not have an amazing game by any standards but he was solid when his number was called and the effort he showed was fantastic. You can tell that Ballage is hungry for a roster spot and that determination gives him an extra edge.

Right before Herbert’s beautiful touchdown dart to Keenan Allen, Ballage had a fantastic effort after a reception on a screen pass that extended the drive.

The play was blown up behind the line of scrimmage and Ballage made several Jets defenders miss to turn a two-yard loss into a nine-yard gain and the first down. He may have only finished with 44 yards on 16 carries but his efforts did make the offense better.

Offensive playcalling:

They didn’t do what we all thought they would do. The Chargers did not get obsessed with establishing the run and actually let Justin Herbert go to work. Granted, Herbert kind of had to continue to pass the ball as this game was closer than it should have been, but the Chargers set that tempo early.

We were all worried that the Chargers would run the ball too much and not utilize their record-setting rookie quarterback. As we already touched on in the great portion of this article, Herbert was more than utilized today.

I understand wanting to be wary of overusing a rookie quarterback, especially after the unfortunate injury to Joe Burrow, who was averaging 41 passing attempts per game. However, Herbert does not need to be handled with kid gloves.