Despite missing four of their best players and having a banged-up Justin Herbert, the Chargers looked like they were on their way to upset the Chiefs on Sunday. However, they came up short.
“We had a chance to do something special and weren’t able to hold onto the rope when it mattered the most,” Khalil Mack said, according to Eric Smith, per the team’s official website.
Asante Samuel, Jr. added: “We prepare throughout the offseason, not just for them, but we know we have to beat them to get to where we’re going. It’s definitely frustrating.”
Los Angeles has lost 11 straight home games to Kansas City.
To beat the Chiefs, you have to be able to limit Patrick Mahomes, which the Chargers did, holding him to 17 points or fewer for just the 11th time in his 99 career NFL starts.
But as we know by now, the best defense is offense against Kansas City. Los Angeles could not get anything going on that side of the ball. They scored 10 points off a pair of Chiefs turnovers, but that was it.
The Chargers, who have had a lot of success running the football, finished with only 55 yards rushing and averaged 2.3 yards per carry.
It was evident that Rashawn Slater and Joe Alt were out. The offensive line struggled to protect Justin Herbert. Herbert was sacked twice and pressured on 12 of his dropbacks. Penalties were costly, too. Los Angeles went three-and-out on four of its eight possessions in the final three quarters.
“The game was within our control and we made a lot of self-inflicted wounds to cause us to not win the game,” Trey Pipkins said.
When you play the Chiefs, people aren’t going to remember what happened during the game but the outcome of it. Coming close to beating them is not anything to be proud of.
“There’s a lot of football we can be proud of. But that doesn’t matter,” Mack said. “There’s no moral victories, especially for me. I’m looking to dominate [people] on Sundays.”