The Chargers didn’t get unlucky. Instead, they were outplayed and their mistakes were too costly to overcome in Sunday’s loss to the Dolphins.

Here are my takeaways from Week 10:

Play-calling was questionable

The Chargers knew that the Dolphins possessed one of the best defenses in the NFL coming into the game. However, I didn’t know that would entail drawing up a script that would take the football out of the team’s best offensive player’s hands completely.

Instead, Los Angeles resorted to a run-heavy approach to take some of the pressure off of Herbert in hopes of it helping with Miami’s blitz-heavy scheme. But the decision to run the ball more did not help, as they failed to go for over 100 yards, despite running back Kalen Ballage’s strong outing.

The Chargers called run play on 18 of their 30 first and second-down, putting Herbert in a handful of unideal situations to try to convert on third downs. Los Angeles didn’t have much success, going 4-of-13 on third-down.

While he had his ups and downs, it didn’t help that he was under constant duress on the majority of his drop backs or his targets were erased. But the bottom line is that Herbert wasn’t given a chance until late in the game. Like I’ve said, roll with what is working. Running the football was not.