AFC West report: Chargers squander opportunity to draw even with Chiefs

What a lovely and not stressful weekend of football we enjoyed, Chiefs Kingdom!

It’s always strange to me when we get to just sit and watch football without having to worry about the Chiefs. Of course, in my house we just stressed over the Hawkeyes (and then Minnesota), so shout out to the Hawkeyes for making it to the Big10 Championship game. We also had the pleasure of stressing out over the Cowboys in my house. We will definitely get to that, but before we examine the Cowboys-Raiders game, let’s look at some other AFC West teams.

Los Angeles Chargers

What has happened to the Chargers? Have teams figured out Justin Herbert? Is he broken? Kidding. But the reality is that Herbert had a rough day at Mile High. The Chargers fell to a pretty injury-riddled Denver team in a game they needed to leap-frog the Chiefs to first in the West. They couldn’t do it thanks to the tough defense of Denver.

Austin Ekeler remains one of the better backs in the league, but he was not enough to overcome the tough Broncos defense. The Chargers ultimately fell to the Broncos 28-13 and remain in second place in the AFC West.

The Chargers have really squandered an opportunity. They had every chance to run away with the AFC West and chose not to. Instead they have lost games they should have won easily. I probably should have expected this from the Chargers given their history, but I suppose I thought they were different this year. Right now, the Chargers are on the outside looking in. They will need to keep pace with and then beat the Chiefs if they hope to make the playoffs as the first in the West.

That road starts, first, with an incredibly tough game at Cincinnati. The Bengals are heating up. They demolished the Steelers on Sunday and look like a complete team. The Chargers will have a really big test on Sunday to see what kind of team they are and if they have any hope of seeing the postseason.