One dumb play call doomed the Chargers, and everyone should be ashamed

Leading 22-20 with two minutes left in the game, the Chargers inexplicably ran a play that ended up costing them a win.

One deeply stupid play from an otherwise smart quarterback might have cost the Los Angeles Chargers a chance to win the division on Sunday.

With a two-point lead and two minutes left in the game, the Chargers just needed to get the clock moving to put Denver on its heels. No matter whether positive yardage was gained or not, the absolute last thing Los Angeles could do was stop the clock and give the Broncos time to do something with it.

That’s exactly what happened, and the Chargers ended up losing the game in complete Chargers fashion. It starts with the play call itself, which was the wrong call from the jump.

Whether or not Rivers completed the pass or not became almost irrelevant when he lined up in shotgun rather than under center. When you have Melvin Gordon in the backfield, calling a run play shouldn’t be hard. Gordon didn’t even need to get a first down or get into field goal range, he simply needed to run and get the clock moving.

If that happens it eats more than half a minute off the clock and leaves the Broncos with roughly a minute left and no timeouts to go most of the field and get into a position to win. That could have still happened, but the chances were significantly lower than what actually played out.

Calling the wrong play is compounded by the fact that Rivers clocked the ball, which amounted to a bonus timeout for the Broncos. Instead of having less than a minute, Denver had almost a full two minutes to simply get into field goal range — which is what happened. The play call was inexcusable but Rivers clocking the ball is unforgivable.

The pièce de résistance to this deeply dumb series of events is the Chargers essentially handed the AFC West to the Kansas City Chiefs. A win would have kept Los Angeles at 8-2 and within striking distance with a game in Arrowhead still on the horizon. The Chiefs have a very losable game against the competent Los Angeles team on Monday night, which means we very well could have headed into Thanksgiving with a tie atop the West and that December showdown in Arrowhead potentially being for the division.

Instead, Los Angeles now sits two games behind the Chiefs and can only hope to force a first-place tie in December. All because of one very stupid play that might cost Los Angeles more than just a very embarrassing loss.