Justin Herbert for MVP? I'm kidding of course, no anti-Herbert rants are necessary. But rarely have we seen one team so completely throw in the towel after losing a star player to injury as last night. It was enough to make us yearn for Broncos-Dolphins film; that game was 21-10 near halftime. This was horrific from the word go.
QUARTERBACKS
We've seen some lightly regarded backup quarterbacks step in and look surprisingly competent, most recently Jake Browning in Cincinnati. That did not happen with Easton Stick. Stick, as discussed in the lofty expectations for the Raiders defense in the Weekly, appears to have problems maintaining his grip on a football when an opposing player drifts into his zip code. In two appearances he's now been sacked 6 times (once erased by penalty, but it happened) and lost fumbles on 5 of those plays. It's one of the more inexplicable things I've ever seen involving a quarterback wearing an NFL uniform, being as this is a contact sport which occasionally involves being struck by another human being. I've dipped into his college stats at North Dakota State and have not been able to find evidence of this issue; in fact, Stick was a productive runner, with 2,523 yards and 41 touchdowns on the ground, and presumably some of those plays involved being hit.
TCU seventh-rounder Max Duggan is the backup, and I can only assume we will eventually see him in the lineup if Stick can't functionally hold a football in the course of a game. That will be a decision made by the interim head coach, presumably, with there being a decent chance Brandon Staley is fired today. Stick threw for 182 yards and 3 touchdowns after halftime last night, and you're not complaining today if you started Joshua Palmer. But production compiled in a game that was 49-0 early in the third quarter needs to be taken with a healthy grain of salt.
As does production compiled by Aidan O'Connell. Readers will recall we were very impresed by O'Connell's play back in August, thinking he might zip past Brian Hoyer for the backup job and potentially be a viable starting quarterback. O'Connell hasn't in fact looked good over the past six weeks or so, but was very sharp last night. It's understandable given the preseason-like nature of the effort put forth by the Chargers on both sides of the ball that O'Connell would look like he did in the preseason. He's at Kansas City next week and I don't expect anything close to what we just saw, but maybe he can do it at Indianapolis in Week 17. Presumably if you have a meaningful game then you'll have a better option than O'Connell.
RUNNING BACKS
It's been a mostly terrible year for those who drafted Austin Ekeler in the first round, and last night's eyesore is just the final gutpunch that surely will eliminate many who started him in a playoff tilt. The fact that he hung around long enough to get you 7.8 PPR points can basically be considered a gift; with the Chargers down 21-0 while people were still parking their cars it was clear that Ekekler wouldn't play long enough to hit on any of the betting overs that their only healthy offensive star was projected for. Joshua Kelley came in to lose a fumble only slightly less soft than the one by Stick that started the flurry of turnovers. Dynasty leaguers take note, if the Chargers blow things up in the offseason and get rid of Ekeler (I don't know if his contract makes it reasonable), the new starter next year will not be Kelley. Isaiah Spiller carried 16 times for 50 yards. Spiller will not ever be an NFL starter either.
Zamir White punched in an early touchdown, rewarding those who started him. White has looked ordinary or worse with his NFL chances, but no complaints about his performance last night. The Chargers didn't seem too interested in the proceedings so I'm not sure we should read much more into his decent game than that of O'Connell. But if Josh Jacobs misses the game at Kansas City next week, White will be in the discussion to start and maybe get you 40-50 total yards and a touchdown. Ameer Abdullah had 8 touches, we can forget him ever being a fantasy option.
WIDE RECEIVERS
Davante Adams, Jakobi Meyers, Joshua Palmer -- all those guys paid off last night. Palmer was quite worrying early on since he didn't even have a ball thrown his way in the first half, then cracked the box score with a 79-yard touchdown catch to get LA on the scoreboard. I feel like in retrospect you can defend starting him (No. 1 wide receiver) or not starting him (Stick is terrible). Adams was presumably started where people had him, No. 1 wideout facing the league's bottom-ranked pass defense. Meyers, like Palmer, didn't see a ton of passes, catching only 2 for 32 yards, in line with his lesser numbers in recent weeks. But one was a touchdown, and the Raiders curiously decided to dust off his passing ability with a trick play touchdown throw in a game that was 42-0, which is certainly an interesting choice. Feels like you should save trick plays for meaningful games, but I guess the Raiders don't know when the next one of those will be, so whatever.
Tre Tucker was dropped in my dynasty league this week; I regret not picking him up, obviously. He'll be the main add next week for someone who has priority, after catching 2 TDs last night. If the Raiders shop Adams in the offseason, maybe Tucker and Meyers are the main wideouts next season. I'll just caution against reading too much into a performance that came against a defense that seemingly checked out last Thursday or so. Speaking of dynasty, Quentin Johnston caught a touchdown after most had gone to bed. The fact that Johnston could play nearly every snap last night while catching all of 2 passes is something else. A really disappointing rookie season, it doesn't mean he can't bounce back, but he certainly hasn't done much with ample opportunities, given the Chargers' other wide receivers injuries.
TIGHT ENDS
Gerald Everett had a Gerald Everett stat line, catching 5 passes for 41 yards. Most of it came in the first half, with him being the lone Charger who seemed to be interested in participating, but that gradually got beat out of him. I don't imagine anyone was starting Michael Mayer, but he's at least shown flashes of future potential when the team has shown an inclination to use him in the passing game. Next year, perhaps he'll be this year's Trey McBride.
MISCELLANEOUS
A 50-50 proposition if you bought into our favorable defensive rankings for the teams playing last night. Obviously, if you picked the Raiders and used them, you're grinning like an idiot today. Stick's difficulty holding onto the football will make the Bills and Broncos the next two weeks the most appealing defenses to stream. (The Bills game is in primetime next Saturday night, oh joy.) Flipside is that the Chargers defense got you nothing but a sack and probably negative points when factoring in points allowed in some leagues. Given what they did to O'Connell in his first NFL start, they seemed like a viable choice, but they absolutely didn't show up last night and falling behind 42-0 at the half is not the kind of thing that breeds opportunities.
Back when the NFL made its decision to have a Thursday night game each week during the season, you wonder if there was someone in the room saying, hey, What if we get to Week 15 and there are two horrible, eliminated teams playing out the string with backup quarterbacks and slightly banged-up players sitting out, giving us an ugly night of football? But I suppose if there was, somebody else said, well, we're going to get paid a lot of money for this TV contract, so shut up. And that was the end of that. Two more Thursday games this season, Saints-Rams (playoff contenders!) and Jets-Browns (Rodgers returns? And a playoff contender). I guess things could be worse.