LA Chargers: Team grades from a confusing win over the Broncos

Offensive line and running backs
While they had some good moments towards the beginning of the season, the offensive line has clearly hit rock bottom. 12 pressures allowed isn’t inherently a ghastly number. The Chargers have done far worse this season, but it looked much worse on film.
Forrest Lamp and Dan Feeney allowed five of those pressures in addition to one hit and one sack. The interior of this offensive line remains incredibly shaky with neither Lamp nor Feeney taking signficant enough leaps forward this year.
Sam Tevi allowed four pressures and a quarterback hit while Bryan Bulaga left the game with a foot injury. That qualifies as a disastrous day for the tackles on the line as well. Bulaga’s hellish season continues while Tevi took a step back and Norton was once again tossed into action mid game. Yikes.
Trai Turner didn’t show me anything that got me excited about the prospect of keeping him on the team past this year either. This offensive line is in a terrible state with porous protection for Herbert and rather bad blocking for the running game.
Austin Ekeler had an OK game as he averaged 4.5 yards per carry. He also caught a touchdown from Herbert. Kalen Ballage and Justin Jackson were as invisible as they’ve been most of this season. Not a tangible impact from either.
There was some focus on Joshua Kelley being inactive in this game as he does need reps and snaps, but we all know that wouldn’t have changed anything in the running game. The run blocking is so bad that Ekeler is the only running back who’s able to do something by making defenders miss with his elusiveness and skill. Jackson and Ballage didn’t do themselves any favors outside of the offensive line issues though.