Players that outplayed epectations tonight
 

1) Charles - can we get the guy the ball more...and on plays other than draws? PLEASE?

2) Glenn Dorsey - Man was a dominating force tonight!

3) DJ - good job man, you held down your gap (with exception of a couple plays) and played solid football.

4) Tyson Jackson - you showed some fire out there and contributed to a run defense that played a damn good game

5) Shaun Smith - we were noticeably better with you on the field as the nose. Keep up the good work.

6) Moeaki - had some nice blocks and if we had a quarterback, he would have had a big game.

7) Arenas - good returns are becoming the norm and his coverage was pretty good most of the time. Kids gonna be good once he gets up to speed on defense.

8) Carr - Great game, nuff said.

9) DMC - I cant wait till we find a way to get this kid on the field consistently. I think his "illness" limited how much they used him tonight, but his speed on the punt return is .2 faster than his timed speed from the combine...maybe faster.

10) The team as a whole - it was nice to see em playing as a team for the first time in a few years. We are noticeably on the right path if we can "fix the quarterback"

Lilja had a good game. Waters was fun to watch. He had some nasty fire going.

I think the biggest stand outs tonight were DJ and Dorsey on defense and Charles on offense. That kid is just sick. I think people are getting a bit down on Jones, not because he is bad but because they want more Charles. I think we will get more Charles as well but we simply can't have him in there every play or he will get broken.

Crennell had a great game.

No love for flowers?

Teh defense has improved thus far. We are flying to the ball and yes, I couldn't believe my eyes, we are tackling!!! We just have to get someone on the other side of Hali to bring the pass rush off the edges and continue to work on getting more push in the middle.

Lets be honest, SD is a good offensive team and next to Indy, probably the best offensive team we are going to see all year.

I expect him to be great.

That's what he is.

I should have added:

11) the ol...they played much better than I expected them to.

I was very impressed with Carr. After him getting burned in the preseason and practice, it didn't sound like he was doing very well.

I would say McCluster, DJ and Tyson Jackson. I actually expected the play we got out of Charles, Dorsey and Arenas. Maybe an honorable mention to Smith. I wasn't sure McCluster was going to play, or if he did, that he was going to return a punt 94-yards...

The guys I wasn't particularly thrilled with were Richardson and Cassel.

Berry had a rough night, as well, but I think that's to be expected with a rookie.

Lewis seemed to be okay out there. We're going to have an amazing secondary for a long time I think.

He was/is still learning to play man coverage. He will continue to progress IMO the more he learns to get his head turned.

Im glad we played them in the rain.

This defense is gonna end up top 12-15 defense... but maybe, it could be a top 7-10 defense. I reallllly like defense.

Top 5 defenses make me very happy.

The offense is gonna have to convert some 3rd downs and stop going 3 and out to get them into the top 10.

They played pretty well, Belcher should probably get some kind of notice for playing a solid game.

I'm just afraid the rain did more for us than anything. Rivers was carving us up when it was dry.

I'm not sure the crowd didn't throw him off more than the weather. They were having problems getting the snap off all night, and I think it really got into his head.

Either way, it's not something we can count on all the time...

We aren't going to play the Chargers every game either, though. For whateve reason we were good tonight it was a good confidence boost for our defense. And to hold on at the end can be a step in setting that mentality that we can play good defense.