Is The Chargers Defense THAT Good Or Are They Just Playing Certified Losers?

There is a lot of chatter going around about how great the Chargers defense has been through this point in the season. A big question mark that seems to not get mentioned, though, is the team's strength of schedule. So far, the quarterbacks they have beaten are Gardner Minshew, Bryce Young, Bo Nix, Spencer Rattler and Jameis Winston. Not exactly murderers row. So I decided to do a very surface level look at the numbers for my beautiful bolts. 

First thing's first. Where is this defense at? 

Outstanding! Borderline miraculous when you consider how insanely terrible this unit was under defensive guru Brandon Staley (typically bottom 5-10 across all of these categories). So how good are the offenses they have played? 

Not good! This confirms that they teams the Chargers beat typically have dogshit offenses while the ones they lose to have good ones. However, lets take a look at the teams the Chargers lost to. 

So, according to this, when the Chargers play a good offense, they still perform well. Even if they don't hold them to a sub-10 score, they still force them into one of their worst offensive performances of the year. That is tremendous improvement compared to last year. 

With all this info in mind one thing that really impresses me is how they are performing at this level with what is not a good roster on paper. This is supposed to be a rebuild year! They lost a lot of guys in the offseason and were limited to the bargain bin when picking guys up thanks to Tom Telesco fucking up the financials. On top of that, Bosa, Asante and more are hurt. 

Does this unit strike any fear into you? It's an island of misfit toys and rookies being forced to start too early that is anchored by Mack and James. That is what DC Jesse Minter has turned into a winning program.

The bottom line is that this is undoubtably a good defensive unit that has some inflated numbers thanks to the competition level. You can't control the schedule but if you are making every good team have to scratch and claw in close games, you're doing your job well. Oh, and Brandon Staley would have lost half these "easy" games so I refuse to take any of this for granted. 

This weekend, I'm gonna crack some Sierra Nevadas and enjoy my Titans under while watching the Chargers beat the ever loving shit out of Will Levis. Bolt Up.