Keenan Allen Shares His Thoughts On The Broncos
On one hand, it’s kind of refreshing to see Keenan Allen just outright disrespect a team that beat his. You don’t see that too much. You can’t, really. Football media is a minefield of PR cliche and giving credit to the other team is practically mandatory to keep people (like me) from having a field day with anything out of the ordinary. We thrive on out of the ordinary. Out of the ordinary is #content baby. It’s fun. It’s the best. Gimme all dat sweet #content.
But it’s also fun and refreshing because it does in fact make things more enjoyable for the rest of us. Maybe not that Chargers fan…s (should I even bother with plural at this point) would enjoy it, but for everyone else it gives us something to latch onto. Stats and and wins are what people pretend they like about football but their is a reason this petty nothing drama grabs headlines. Stories are the best.
Keenan wiping his butt on a team that just pulled a remarkable comeback (partially due to Keenan’s own team committing some brainfarts) is great. It’s wonderful. The Broncos pulled off the win and he’s being a big ol’ baby about it. Sure. Maybe they did dominate the whole game until the end. Doesn’t matter! Eat that L, boi. Eat it. Eat it down. Allen refused and now the Chargers have a reason to actually be in the news. I guess any press is good press for a team that only plays away games now.
I’m not sure if I trust the Chargers this season. Someone in the comments of my last Chargers comic (also featuring Keenan Allen!) mentioned that the Chargers like to start slow, pick up steam when nobody is paying attention, get attention, then get exposed and miss the playoffs. I’m having a hard time disagreeing with that assessment and it certainly looks plausible. The Chargers are 7-3, but they haven’t actually beaten anybody of note and seem to have an extremely soft schedule. The Chiefs and Rams beat them, but outside that, they’ve beaten up on the Raiders and Browns but had surprisingly close games with the 49ers, Titans, Broncos, and Seahawks. They also beat the Bills. That’s hardly murderers row. That’s like tax evasion row.
Coming up, the Chargers have to play the Cardinals, the Steelers, the Bengals, the Chiefs, the Ravens, and the Broncos. They probably lose to the Steelers and the Chiefs, and I’d wager they lose one more of that group and finish the season 3-3, at a comfy 10-6, which would probably be enough to earn one of the wild cards. Then they’ll get shellacked in the first week of the playoffs. If they lose 4 games, which could happen as the Ravens/Broncos and even the Bengals can be big wildcards, they likely miss the playoffs and extend their time in the land of forgotten mediocrity.
I hope Keenan Allen runs his mouth either way. Also you should google him. That’s some unfortunate male pattern baldness. He aged 20 years in 2 seasons.
“I’d wager they lose one more of that group and finish the season 3-3, at a comfy 10-6, which would probably be enough to earn one of the wild cards. Then they’ll get shellacked in the first week of the playoffs.”
You sure about that? I’m visualizing them as the eventual #5 seed(they’re playing generally quite well, and outside of them, the Pats, the Steelers and the Chiefs no AFC team looks scary at all), and thus getting pitted against #4 seed Texans(Luck the reborn can only do so much on his own for the Colts, Titans are schizophrenic as heck, Jags are in one-year-wonder free-fall mode).
I do NOT trust the Texans to beat the Chargers, even at home. Despite the 7-win streak(?!) they currently have, the Texans have this weird stink of fraud-ness all over them. After all, a lot of those wins were by close shaves and/or barely staving off choking on their own suck. Just look at their last game, Alex Smith dies when they were up 17-7, then friggin’ Colt McCoy almost leads a comeback to trounce them.
Texans are the biggest fraud division leaders bar the team they just beat, so they’re never getting above #4 seed, and if the Chargers are #5, they’re never going to win unless Dave’s weird prophecy from the past comes true so that Philip Rivers dies and his new ironman streak gets finished off by Geno Smith.
(Disclaimer: I do NOT hate the Texans or root for the Chargers. Total opposite for both teams, in fact.)
The Texans could threaten for more than the 4 seed because their remaining schedule is quite weak: Titans, Browns, Colts, Jets, Eagles, Jaguars. All .500 or below, 4 of those 6 are at home, and both of the .500 teams on the schedule are at home (the falling Titans and the ascending Colts).
But, yes, they could very well be a paper tiger even if they manage a very realistic 4-2 or 5-1 in their final 6 games because the offensive line is awful in pass protection, inconsistent in run blocking, and battling significant injury trouble. They certainly won’t scare anyone in the playoffs if they can’t protect Watson and he gets hurt again or tosses up several interceptions because he is constantly getting hit as he throws. Their best bet to win in the playoffs is to build an early lead by throwing to Hopkins and trying to sit on it with the defensive and several 2.5 yard Alfred Blue carries.
Yeah the Texans/Chargers matchup would be ideal for both teams because I don’t see either of them beating anyone else. Both feel like paper tigers. Maybe if the Texans somehow eek out the 3 seed and get the 6th seed.
The Broncos do suck, as a long time Denver fan I will gladly admit that. But do we suck as much as a team that puts up almost 500 yards and only scores 22 points? Fantasy Football doesn’t win rings, Allen.
Would be nice to see more of this. Its smacktalk for the camera’s, but it adds to the spice of the game.
Though I admit us putting Alvin Kamara’s comment from last season about beating the Eagles as some kind of motivational tool backfired quite spectacularly.
I do agree that the Bronco’s suck horribly though. That offense is barely better than Cleveland levels and the D is middle of the pack even with a Von Miller pass rush.
The Chargers, before the season started, were being touted as a possible Super Bowl contender. They have a very talented team, capable of beating almost any team week in and week out. They play two of the best teams in the league and lose to both of them. They inflate their record by beating up (obviously) weaker teams. During this process, they cause many to believe they are just on the cusp of finally going deep (into the playoffs). All of this is ruined when they run into a bad Broncos team and instead of going long….they checkdown. Metaphorically speaking, this is seemingly every Chargers season for the last few years.
Yeah – it’s a rule. Sports media can’t bring up Antonio Gates without mentioning basketball, Aaron Rodgers without fondling themselves, they always have to mention that the Chargers are *dramatic pause* a dark horse.
I don’t know why I thought this team was done blowing leads. Probably because we played garbage teams. We have an alright team, but because we have no defense without Bosa and the team dies in the fourth quarter. And after seeing us get handled by the Chiefs and Rams, we will be sitting ducks. If we make it into the playoffs, we’ll end up like the Chiefs last year. I can already feel it.
It did suck to see them lose, and also for Keenan to talk smack, but ultimately that’s kinda what you signed up for when you came to this team. I had no clue cuz I just followed this team when they were alright and now I can’t go back because momma didn’t raise no quitter. Or maybe I’m just saying that to make me feel good about liking a team that can’t pull out a win in the clutch.
And also I’m going to the Steelers-Chargers game, since I live in Pittsburgh and its not worth flying to StubHub and get smacked by the away crowd. I’m thinking of making a sign. Any suggestions?
Holy crap I can’t write
Just print out a Cry Me A Rivers comic and bring it with you as you watch Primetime Big Ben annihilate your Chargers
Cry me a Rivers, Part 4 seems like the comic to do. That would fit perfectly.
The chargers are playing arguably their best football ever under Philip Rivers this season, but they’re still not the best team in their own division, and also not even the best team in their own city. Kind of how Rivers’ career has always gone. He’s been one of the best QB’s in the last decade or two, but no one will ever give him or the Chargers the attention they deserve
Ultimately, it comes down to wins. The Chargers always look flashy but they don’t WIN. After he retires Rivers will occasionally come up in conversations about great QB’s who never won a Super Bowl but will otherwise be a forgotten orchestrator of blown leads.
I think a lot of people have taken Keenan’s comments out of context. Sure, he did say the Broncos suck. But the point he was trying to get across was that the Chargers beat themselves in this game with some big mistakes at the worst times. All he really meant to say is that the Chargers did more to lose this game than the Broncos did to win it.
On a side note, it appears that the rest of you, even Sad Chargers Fan, have totally written off this team. Which makes me want to ask – what do they have to do to earn respect? I don’t mean the franchise as a whole; obviously the front office is terribly inept and it has led to a depleted fanbase. I mean the team itself – the players on the field. What would the Chargers have to do to get people to believe they are a contender?
Beat a genuinely good team.
They haven’t yet. If they beat the Chiefs or Steelers, maybe even the Ravens, then they should get more consideration.
Thanks for replying, Dave.
I suspect that’s not enough, though. After the Cardinals this weekend is a date with the Steelers in Pittsburgh. Would even a win there be enough? Or would they have to win by two scores? Even if they did, I feel like some people would just make excuses for the Steelers. “Oh, they just had an off-game. It happens to everyone.”
I feel as though the Chargers could beat the Steelers and the Chiefs, convincingly, and people would still write them off as a “paper tiger”.
Earning respect in this league is unbelievably difficult if you’re not one of the established perennial powerhouses.
I think a signature win in Pittsburgh with the playoff picture coming into focus would help get them some credit from actual good places. There’s always going to be a large contingent of people who are going to ignore and poop on the Chargers because they haven’t done anything in the playoffs yet. That’s just a depressing nature of the beast and those people will only get won over with deep playoff success, so I wouldn’t concern yourself with them.
Also if they beat the Chiefs that would probably turn heads.
I think the Seahawks are better than the Ravens, but certainly the Chargers have had a soft schedule. However, while the Chargers haven’t had a statement win, I don’t think people give the Chargers enough credit for how consistently solid they have been. The worse game they have played was against the Niners (and that wasn’t a good game). But they looked solid to pretty good in essentially every other game. I don’t think there was any extended period were the offense couldn’t move the ball. Pretty much every team has had an awful game(s). The Steelers just had one, the Saints lost soundly to the Bucs and then immediately almost lost to the Browns, the Pats looked like shit in all three of their losses, the Texans lost to the Giants, and the Bears lost to Brock and the Dolphins. Only the Rams and Chiefs have played well in every game. Every team aims to maximize the good and minimize the bad. The Chargers haven’t really done the former but they’re good at the latter.
I don’t have too much faith in the Chargers against the Chiefs (they have lost 9 straight H2H games), but I do believe they can compete/beat every other team on their schedule, even Pittsburgh. They’ll get more respect by the end of the season.
“what do they have to do to earn respect?”
Move back to San Diego. LA sucks…
“That’s hardly murderers row. That’s like tax evasion row.”
great line. stealing it!
You wanna talk about hairlines? Two words: Drew Brees.