Austin Ekeler Opens Up About Chargers Struggles to Close Games
The Los Angeles Chargers are focused on their Week 2 opponent, the Tennessee Titans, as they will travel to Nashville for this AFC showdown. However, people can't seem to let go of their Week 1 thriller loss to the Miami Dolphins, including their star running back Austin Ekeler.
Ekeler appeared on the Jim Rome show earlier this week to discuss the loss and opened up about his team's inability to close out close games.
"Inconsistency. It's just straight-up inconsistency," he responded. "And it's not just the players, like when you look at the NFL, a lot of the players, yes, there's outliers, but a lot of the players are very similar in talent, there's not a huge gap. You might have a few outliers, and if your team has a few of these decent outlier players, then you have a chance to win games.
"If you have no studs on your team, superstars that can hold the rope and make plays consistently, it's going to be hard for you to win. And that's what we have salary caps, and that's why we pay these players, and you know, people have the contracts that they have. And for us, when we have our guys that are getting hurt that are being consistent for us, right, that plays a part into it. And we've had injuries over the past years, and you can't blame everything on injuries. Our coaching hasn't always been the best. Our play hasn't always been the best. And when you have a combination of those, then guess what? You're going to be inconsistent."
The unfortunate truth about all this is that the Chargers seem to end on the short end of the stick more often than not. Ekeler isn't wrong; the NFL has elite players on every team, but the more inferior team could get the upper hand on a week-in-week-out basis.
Still, LA has no excuse to have this happen over and over again. It can't, and if it does continue, things won't be pretty for anyone in the organization.
Are the Chargers not bad, just inconsistent? Nonetheless, that won't work for a team with this much talent, a quarterback making the second-most money ever, and a new rejuvenated offense.
The talk is done; they need to put up or shut up now, and they have a chance to redeem themselves this Sunday. We'll see if they can end up on the other side of the stick if push comes to shove this weekend.
