Anyone who thought the Chargers would mope around with a "woe is me" attitude following Week 1's loss to the Kansas City Chiefs should think again.
The Bolts returned to practice on Wednesday with something to prove. Afterward, they characterized the physical, upbeat two-hour session as one with a distinct purpose in mind, which is to take out their frustrations against the Jaguars in their home opener.
"Guys absolutely were (ticked) off," said Matt Slauson. "You could feel that in the energy. It was extra physical today. Guys were flying off. I thought it was fun. That is what you want to see in the team. We know we let that last game slip (away), and we have to find a way, whatever it takes, to fix that (and) not let it happen again. The way we as players do that is with great effort and the kind of practice we had today."
The way a team bounces back from adversity says a lot about its character. To a man, the Chargers know they can't let one loss bleed into another, nor lament on the season ending injury to Keenan Allen. Instead, they said they are determined to show the mental fortitude needed to withstand a 16-game season.
"The energy (today) was good," said Philip Rivers. "There wasn't any moping around, but there was a little bit of remnants of aggregation and sickness from the loss, it wasn't quite out of our system yet. We have moved on, (but) guys are still sick about it because of how good we were for 50 minutes of the game [and] how we let it slip away. Shoot, we had a good spirited practice…We have 15 (games left) to play. We can't let it linger or we will be dealing with another one this Monday. The only thing we can't do now is be undefeated."
Head Coach Mike McCoy had his own word to sum up today's practice – salty.
"A great mindset today out at practice," he said. "A little saltiness here and there, which is good. (That's) expected after the game…. The mindset the players came out with, you know it's in the air. You can feel it. It's a little bit different."
The players agreed with the head coach's assessment.
"Yeah, there was some saltiness especially on the defensive side of the ball," Melvin Gordon said. "You could see it with the way those guys were playing. But that's a good thing. It shows the guys care. We're hungry. We know we took a hard loss and we're ready to get after it. We're ready to get this taste out of our mouth. If we didn't play like that today, then I'd be worried."
"Obviously you're never going to be happy after a loss of that magnitude that we took," added Jahleel Addae. "But we came out today motivated. We were hungry. No one is doubting themselves. It's a new week and we are looking to go out there and get win number one in front of our fans."
