San Diego Chargers: 5 Keys to Late-Season Playoff Push

The San Diego Chargers need help.

They are seventh in the AFC playoff picture, and with a brutal late-season stretch coming up—their next five opponents have a combined 37-17 record—they can’t play as close and as sloppily as they did in their win versus the Rams if the postseason is the goal.

A collapse by the Chiefs or Steelers would be helpful, but the Chargers cannot be expecting any favors. The only team they can trust is themselves.

Luckily, 7-4 is not a bad place to be at this point in the season, and the Chargers have shown some positive signs since they got off their bye. Leaning on the revitalized running game, along with the defense continuing to be diverse and effective, is a recipe for success as November comes to a close.

Let’s look at five keys for a San Diego playoff push, most of which are easily doable if the team builds on what they’ve done the past two weeks.

Keep Chris Watt on the Field

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Rookie center Chris Watt held up pretty well in his first NFL start despite the tough matchup. He wasn’t perfect—he had two penalties and instances where it looked like he didn’t know the snap count—but he is certainly a better post-Nick Hardwick option to anchor the middle than Rich Ohrnberger is.

What Watt is best at is finding who he needs to block next. He keeps his head on a swivel and is great at assisting the Chargers’ struggling guards in pass protection via nicely timed double teams. This translated over to the running game Sunday, in which Watt made a key block for Ryan Mathews’ touchdown run off the draw.

Watt’s football intelligence will serve the Chargers well during the stretch run. The offensive line, while not elite, has looked much better with him in the starting lineup. He’s shown great anticipation with his blocks, which Mathews will greatly benefit from. Once he gets more in sync with Rivers, the Chargers will have their long-term answer at center.

Continue to Mix Up the Linebackers

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What got into defensive coordinator John Pagano? Ever since the bye week, he has been constantly substituting linebackers and switching their roles throughout games. This isn’t the vanilla defensive packages Chargers fans have come to accept and endure.

It’s no coincidence Pagano began showing off his creativity when linebackers Melvin Ingram and Manti Te’o returned from the injured list. The addition of both players gives the Chargers much-needed versatility. Ingram can rush the passer on the edge and the interior, while Te’o is a solid cover linebacker that Pagano has been using exclusively in nickel and dime sets.

The rest of the linebacking corps has been playing well, too. Kavell Connor has suddenly turned into a run-stopping force. Andrew Gachkar showed great awareness in recovering Corey Liuget’s forced fumble for a touchdown against St. Louis. Donald Butler and Dwight Freeney have benefited from reduced roles.

It’s possible that the Chargers could be easing back Te’o into the starting lineup, but Pagano’s handling of Butler suggests otherwise. “Hot hand” looks like the term to use for this new-look group. That’s a good thing—it plays to the unit’s depth and makes it much tougher for passers like Peyton Manning to easily dissect the defense.

Lean on Ryan Mathews During the Difficult Stretch

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The Chargers have one of the most difficult late-season slates of any NFL team, with matches against the Ravens, Patriots, Broncos, 49ers and Chiefs. Three of those games are on the road.

To point out the obvious, none of these teams are the Raiders or Rams. They have legitimate Super Bowl aspirations. The Chargers’ defense has fared well facing weak competition, but it is doubtful they will be able to keep it up against the likes of Manning, Tom Brady and Jamaal Charles.

That’s why the Chargers need to start playing like their 2013 selves, which features Ryan Mathews grinding out tough yards and running down the clock. The best way to counter Hall of Fame shoo-ins is to make sure they never see the field. The Chargers did that in crucial moments last year, and it paid dividends as they snuck into the playoffs by winning four straight.

This sounds idealistic considering the strength of the teams ahead, but it is absolutely doable. Only the Broncos are in the top nine of Football Outsiders’ run defense rankings. The other four teams range from 10th to 18th. In other words, San Diego faces only one really good run defense. The team can impose an effective clock-churning philosophy as long as they make Mathews the focus.

Get Jerry Attaochu More Involved

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When rookie outside linebacker Jerry Attaochu sees the field, something good happens. In a mere 64 pass-rushing snaps, he has five hurries and two sacks, per Pro Football Focus (subscription required).

Pagano likes to use Attaochu in third-and-long situations in one of his more creative packages. Attaochu lines up in a four-man front with Ingram, Liuget and Freeney—reminiscent of the Giants’ “NASCAR” package during their Super Bowl run—which allows the defense to “be aggressive with limited risk,” as pointed out by Jeff Siniard of SB Nation.

Attaochu will be crucial for the Chargers’ late-season playoff push because he is easily the team’s best non-starter on defense. Plus, he is already more of a natural edge-rusher than Ingram is, offers more in run defense than Freeney does and is more athletic than Jarret Johnson.

Getting Attaochu on the field more often will make things more difficult for Flacco, Brady and Manning in the pocket, especially when used in tandem with Ingram and Liuget. It certainly worked well against the Rams, in which he executed a perfect stunt to get Liuget free for the forced fumble on Shaun Hill.

“Having Jerry (Attaochu) come around on the stunt, it timed out perfectly,” Liuget said to Hayley Elwood of Chargers.com.  “It was the best play we could have called defensively at the moment.”

Continue to Feed the Receivers on Screens

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The Chargers have a great one-two punch on wide receiver screens in Keenan Allen and Eddie Royal.

Allen has looked much quicker in recent weeks and sliced through the Rams defense whenever he got the ball—sans the fumbles, of course. Royal, while used too heavily early in the season, is in the perfect role now, catching short passes and doing his usual excellent blocking.

Short and easy passes, along with Mathews’ rumblings, are how the Chargers snuck into the 2013 postseason. The same should apply this year. Rivers thrives on these quick throws—he had a quarterback rating of 138.0 on his nine passes behind the line of scrimmage, per Pro Football Focus. The Chargers cannot afford to have their quarterback struggle again, and a steady diet of screens should help prevent that.

If San Diego had success with screen passes versus a uniquely athletic Rams defense, they should have no trouble executing them against the defenses ahead. Allen will improve his ball security, and he should be a featured weapon on short throws going forward. Remember the success he had against Denver in the playoffs? We could be seeing more of that soon.