Chargers: More reaction to 41-3
Some odds and ends from the athletes, following the Chargers' 41-3 rout in Denver:
From defensive end Luis Castillo:
"Man, winning cures everything. At the end of the day, you've got to remember that we're a new team, a team still getting to know each other. Sometimes you expect so much, and the expectations are so high this year, that you forget that. It's going to take some time, and we're starting to mesh."
Castillo on whether the Chargers were an angry team because of what they'd been through the previous three weeks:
"You only get 16 of these, and every one you prepare so seriously and work so hard, you put absolutely everything into it. I'm not going to say we prepared better or we fought harder or we had more emotion today than any of the last three games we lost."
Vincent Jackson on Philip Rivers:
"I don't think he's really lost his confidence. Philip knows how to play this game. He just made a few mistakes ... A lot of people think those turnovers (from the first four weeks) are just on him, but it's a group thing. You go back and watch films, and he's getting some pressure, somebody's coming out and knocking the ball from behind him."
Backup linebacker Carlos Polk on the kickoff where he forced Brian Clark to fumble and Brandon Siler returned the loose ball for a touchdown:
"Nate (Kaeding) put the ball up there good. It's kind of easy to cover when you've got a kickoff guy that puts the ball up there. All you have to do is go down there and hunt. And he put it up there with nice hang time. The next thing I saw was Tim Dobbins take out the wedge, and there was only one hole left open. I just filled it and I saw the ball carry at the same time, and I tried to take his (Clark's) head off. And then I saw the ball pop out. I was just looking for the ball, and then I saw Siler running down there for a touchdown. I was sayin', 'Get in, get in.'
"I mean, kickoff is a pure form of football. You just go up there and hunt. No X's and O's. There's a ballcarrier. Go get him."
Rivers on the Chargers' opening offensive play, when safety Nick Ferguson got into the backfield and stuffed LaDainian Tomlinson for a 4-yard loss:
"The first play of the game they lined up not how we expected to, and Ferguson got back there. Then they lined up in the slot totally different. They'd lined up like that five times in the last four games. That's what Kansas City did to us, and maybe they felt that was going to be their little niche. So it took a while to get adjusted, to figure out who was going to block who."
Tomlinson on whether that was a "here we go again" moment:
"Honestly, we're never like that as players. Particularly in a hostile environment on the road, they're going to stop you sometimes early on, just because they're jacked up, playing the run. That's part of being in the game.
"Our thought process was that in the second half was when we'd wear them down and get the run going then. But then we look up and it's 34-3 or so, or 27-3 or whatever it was."
Tomlinson on some of the Chargers' adjustments, like the screen passes, the play-action and moving fullback Lorenzo Neal around in the backfield, that may have tempered Denver's aggressiveness:
"They were up in there. They've really been having trouble stopping the run, and that was a point of emphasis this week. So the screen kind of hurt them in the beginning, because they were hoping to get a three-and-out early on, get the crowd going and get the offense back on the field.
"There were obvious running situations, and they were thinking run but a lot of times we might check out of it, or we might go play action or do something else. We were committed to the run, and I think that's what ultimately helped us with the play-action pass."