Bolts win the battle of pressure

By Robert Rousseau  |   Wednesday, September 13, 2006  |  Comments( 0 )

San Diego Chargers
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One play during the San Diego Chargers' opening-day win against the Oakland Raiders on Monday night clearly seemed to stand out above the rest. At around 9:23 of the third quarter (second-and-six for the Raiders), Aaron Brooks dropped back to pass.

Unfortunately for the former New Orleans quarterback, Shawne Merriman came around end and dropped him. Of course, that wasn't the noteworthy part. What stood out was the fact that Brooks scrambled well enough to cross the line of scrimmage, thus negating what was almost a sack.

Unfortunately for the Raiders, there was very little of that.

You know, very little of Merriman not sacking Aaron Brooks.

Merriman ended the game with three sacks, leading the Chargers on their way to a 27-0 shutout of Al Davis' club. However, Merriman wasn't the only player that attended the Chargers' sack party. Luis Castillo and Shaun Phillips each contributed 1 ½ on the night, and three other defenders nabbed one sack a piece. The total damage - nine sacks.

What's more, the Bolts achieved this without defensive end Igor Olshansky for most of the game (he left in the first with a sprained knee). Good thing for the Raiders, as Olshansky, according to most reports, had improved his pass-rushing skills tremendously in the offseason.

So how many sacks did the Raiders muster, you ask? That's the other stat that tells the story of this game. After all, the Chargers came into the game with a rookie starting his first game at left tackle (Marcus McNeill), and a quarterback with no NFL starting experience. The recipe for disaster, right? Wrong. Philip Rivers didn't get sacked once.

Whenever one team nets nine sacks and the other lays a goose egg, the winner is clear. The story of the game was pressure. The winner - the San Diego Chargers.

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About Robert Rousseau

Robert Rousseau is a sports writer that has been published in a variety of print and online venues. He’s been writing for RealFootball365.com for almost three years now. When Rousseau isn’t writing about college football he tends to be penning mixed martial arts pieces for MMAFighting.com or ...
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