What We Learned from Sunday’s games

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Eric Edholm’s takeaways:

1. First Chargers victory is a Jim Harbaugh classic. Harbaugh’s first game back in the NFL in nearly a decade looked like many of his victories over the years: tough, stubborn and persistent. The Chargers could not get anything going offensively in the first half, running into brick walls in the ground game while Justin Herbert and the passing game were stuck in neutral. They had seven first-half possessions — none longer than 15 net yards. But Harbaugh and Greg Roman didn’t veer from their approach, Los Angeles’ defense did its job in the interim and the process started to pay off in the second half. The run game started wearing down the Raiders’ impressive front, leading to game-seizing TD drives in the fourth quarter of 61 and 92 yards. The Bolts’ skill talent appears limited, with presumed WR1 Josh Palmer having a tough game (he also was ejected late along with Raiders CB Jack Jones for fighting), nearly costing his team a turnover with a dropped pass. Herbert also never looked entirely comfortable, and there were too many bad penalties. But Harbaugh has enough force on both lines of scrimmage to win a few more 22-10 types of games this season. Ugly win? Ha, that’s Harbaugh’s favorite kind. The Chargers will take it — and Harbaugh won them a game they probably would have lost a year ago.
2. Antonio Pierce’s fourth-and-1 decision doesn’t pay off. With the Raiders trailing 16-10 midway through the fourth quarter, running back Alexander Mattison caught a checkdown on third-and-7, gaining 6 yards to set up a fourth-and-1 from the Chargers’ 43-yard line. That’s when Pierce sent out punter AJ Cole. The Raiders’ run game had done almost nothing to that point, and Zamir White was stopped on fourth-and-1 and third-and-1 runs earlier in the game. But even still, the decision feels indefensible — and Next Gen Stats agreed, saying the situation gave a “Go For It” edge over punting by a healthy 5.5 percent. Meaning: Pierce probably should have gone for it. The Chargers would then flip the field with a 61-yard scamper that all but sealed the game, leading to another touchdown and a two-score deficit. Pierce did a lot of good things in his interim-coaching spell last year to earn him the full-time opportunity, but he also lacked aggression at the end of the Miami loss, which paled in comparison to the more aggressive approach he took in the win over the Jets. It seemed as if Pierce was still feeling his way through the job in his 10th regular-season game — and first as The Guy. He might look back and regret his decisions in the fourth quarter of this one.
3. Welcome back, J.K. Dobbins. When asked this week how he’d divvy up the carries between Gus Edwards and Dobbins, who were listed as co-starters for the Chargers, offensive coordinator Greg Roman pledged to ride “the hot hand.” Edwards might might gotten the start, but on Sunday, the hotter hand belonged to Dobbins. Neither Chargers back did much until the second half; Edwards gained 9 yards on his first five carries, and Dobbins had just 6 yards on three runs. But Dobbins ripped off a 46-yarder — his longest run since his rookie year of 2020 — to set up a field goal, later adding a 12-yard TD run to put the Chargers up 16-7 at the start of the fourth quarter. Then Dobbins went 61 yards on a back-breaking run with four minutes left to put him over the 100-yard rushing mark for the first time since Week 15 of the 2022 season. What those handful of explosive runs showed was that he looked healthy again — with some spring in his step. Dobbins has been to hell and back, injury-wise, since entering the NFL. He suffered a torn ACL that wiped out his 2021 season, re-injured the same knee to cut his 2022 season short and also suffered a ruptured Achilles tendon in the opener almost one year ago to the day. 

Next Gen stat of the game: Chargers rookie RT Joe Alt allowed zero QB pressures in 11 pass-rush matchups against the Raiders’ Maxx Crosby, all in 1-on-1 situations. Crosby had not been held to zero pressures in a matchup against an offensive lineman since Week 9, 2022 (minimum 10 matchups). On the day, Alt allowed three pressures across his 28 total pass-blocking snaps (10.7% pressure rate).

NFL Research: With the victory, Jim Harbaugh improved his NFL head-coaching record to 45-19-1, for a .700 win percentage. That now ranks fifth all time (minimum 60 games). Harbaugh is also 5-0 in Week 1 as a head coach.