The Los Angeles Chargers had one of the strangest practices in NFL playoff history on Saturday.
Trailing 23-6 against the Houston Texans in the fourth quarter with their chances of winning slipping away, Chargers quarterback Justin Herbert took a sack, then another sack, then… threw an 86 touchdown run yards to rookie Ladd McConkey to cut the score. the deficit at 11 points.
It was good for the Chargers.
The trouble came on the extra point, when the Texans got a hold of Cameron Dicker’s kick and sent it straight into the air. Dicker was in an ideal position to recover the ball as it fell and decided to kick the ball rather than catch it.
This would have been the correct decision if he had thrown the ball or crossed the line of scrimmage.
Unfortunately for Dicker and the rest of the Chargers, the ball was still live when it hit the ground, as it never crossed the line of scrimmage. Texans special teamer D’Angelo Ross then grabbed the ball on the bounce and returned it all the way to give the Texans two more points. Judging by the way some Chargers were running, they didn’t know the ball was alive.
And then the Texas offense got the ball.
That’s the fun part about touchdowns. You can earn up to eight points from a single, but you can also end up with effectively four if you waste the extra point enough. Chargers lost 32-12.
Few football fans would know if the ball was alive, but Dicker not realizing he had to catch the ball is a real blunder for a player who has been doing this since he was in high school. He is currently in his third season with the Chargers after a college career with Texas that saw him earn first-team All-Big 12 honors.
By Josh Dubow of the Associated Pressthis is the first blocked extra point return since at least 2000, and the ninth overall in that span. This also happened once again this season, in Week 4 between the Philadelphia Eagles and Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
That was just one of the Chargers’ mistakes Saturday. Four interceptions by Herbert and numerous other errors in all three phases of the game spelled the end for a team that was favored to win.
