Chargers vs. Saints: Drew Brees throws 4 touchdowns give New Orleans its first win

On the Chargers final drive as they attempted to knot the score at 31 and force overtime, San Diego was called for multiple penalties, including holding and offensive pass interference calls.

Bolts From The Blue also criticizes San Diego head coach Norv Turner for abandoning the run in the second half. Ryan Matthews, who was finding a rhythm running the ball earlier, “warmed up a spot on the bench.”

Rivers was leading the Chargers on a comeback drive in the final two minutes of play, completing multiple big passes, but it was interspersed with sacks and penalties, setting them back time and time again. With 1:40 left in the game, the Chargers actually faced a second-and-37, and managed to turn it into a first down ... thanks to a New Orleans penalty, in which the defender was called for “illegal hands to the face.”

Still, the Chargers weren’t able to get things done. They took the ball over midfield and couldn’t do much else, and a forced fumble on a third-and-10 with less than a minute to go sealed the deal for the Saints.

NBC’s Michele Tafoya reported the injury happened as a result of a lingering groin injury the defensive back has already been dealing with for some time now.

Greer’s absence will greatly impact the New Orleans Saints, who are currently working on a comeback at home against the San Diego Chargers, in the short term as well as the long term. The Saints have already struggled this year against the air attack, so losing a starting cornerback in Greer will be no help whatsoever.

Plus he’s short, at just 6-feet tall. Now, this isn’t a new revelation by any means, as it was correctly observed by scouts prior to him entering the league 12 years ago. Since that point there’s only ever been one solution to his problem: hopping. And on Sunday night, he did exactly that.

Given that Brees has one of the quickest releases in the NFL, one has to figure that adding in the hop is a natural thing that he’s added over the years, as he can afford to take that quick second before firing off a strike. Or maybe he’s just got a really bad wedgie, who knows?

San Diego is finding more than enough room to run against the Saints. Mathews has 64 yards on nine carries to go with his touchdown. As a team, the Chargers have 95 rushing yards on a total of 15 carries from their running backs.

Graham eventually returned to the game early in the third quarter, but we’ve got a .gif below of what initially took him out of the game. If you watch his right ankle, you’ll notice it turning in a way that human ankles typically do not turn under normal circumstances.

So yeah, that happened. Watching it is cringe-inducing enough, so plenty feared that Graham might be out and unable to assist the Saints in a possible second half comeback, but he’s been in on offense off and on since returning to the game. He’s caught one pass for four yards on the day, and hasn’t been a frequent target thus far.

However, when you consider that the number of a times a quarterback gets into the red zone is more or less equal to the number of plate appearances a batter gets in a game, the debate gets interesting. In fact, the difficulty argument actually favors Brees. Taking into account his hit total, plate appearances and games played, it’s been calculated that DiMaggio had an 81% chance of getting a hit in any one game. And as the ESPN Stats & Info blog points out, from 2009 to 2012, the odds of a team’s quarterback throwing a TD in any one game was 79.1%. In other words, it was actually less likely for Brees to throw a touchdown during his streak than it was for DiMaggio to get a hit in his.

Crazy, huh?

Though the Saints are 0-4 this year, that has been through no fault of Brees, and this is a record that, if not unbreakable, will be damn hard to match anytime soon.

So there’s your explanation for the following, during SNF’s player intros:

Bigby, for the record, attended the University of Central Florida, and went to high school in Florida. Also, that appears to be his real accent, which is awesome.

The full Saints-Chargers inactive list is as follows:

New Orelans

“America”

Philip Rivers holds his right hand over his heart and thinks one thing...

Date/Time: Sunday, Oct. 7, 8:20 p.m. ET

Location: Mercedes-Benz Superdome, New Orleans.

The New Orleans Saints and San Diego Chargers will take the field in New Orleans for a Sunday Night Football matchup in Week 5, and NFL experts appear to think that the Saints will snap their four-game losing skid and topple the Chargers.

CBS Sportsline’s stable of eight experts has six picking the Saints, while Will Brinson and Josh Katzowitz pick the Chargers to come out on top.