No More Vanilla
As most teams do, the Chargers kept their schemes very basic on both sides of the ball during the exhibition season. Now it’s time to let it rip, and defensive end Luis Castillo is excited that the whole package will be on display starting Sunday.
“You look at what we’ve done, and obviously we’re going to be just as aggressive as we were last year,” he said. “When you come into a defense that was as good as it was at stopping the run and getting pressure on the quarterback, (new coordinator Ted Cottrell) is not going to change much.
“We’ve done some things in the secondary to take away some of the underneath stuff. But we’re still going to bring those outside guys, and we’re going to be just as physical as last year.”
And a big part of the defensive game plan is this: If the Chargers can get to Bears quarterback Rex Grossman, they feel they can force him into some mistakes.
“As good as he is, as good an arm as he has, if you get after him you can rattle him up a little bit,” Castillo said.
“You look at what we do on defense, whether it’s the defensive line or the linebackers, so much of it is just getting after a quarterback, getting hits on a quarterback but also going after the ball. And it’s something we’re going to continue to do. Whether Rex Grossman is more prone to give the ball up or not, I don’t know. They had some turnovers last year. But then … their defense was the best at taking the ball away. So we’re competing against them as well for that title.”