Rich: What to Make of the Cardinals’ Stunning Domination of the Chargers in Week 1

The call came from a Chargers season seat holder who watched the whole thing in person, and his summary did not require much interpretation. Beaten in all three phases.

Rich did not argue. He also did not think the Chargers defense was the real story.

"I think we're going to find out most NFL teams are going to have a problem with that," he said of the Arizona offense.

His case starts with personnel, and it is a longer list than most people have bothered to count. Trey McBride is arguably the best tight end in football. Michael Wilson is legitimate. Kendrick Bourne has apparently found his purpose in the desert, which Rich enjoyed for the obvious reason.

Then there is Marvin Harrison Jr., who has somehow become a punchline in certain corners. Rich pushed back on that hard. A player who goes for nearly a thousand receiving yards in what people are calling a bust year is not a bust.

The backfield is where it gets uncomfortable for opponents. Jeremiah Love is that talented, and behind him sits Tyler Allgeier, who Rich believes is tracking toward first ballot induction in the Vulture Hall of Fame. The pattern is familiar to anyone who watched Bijan Robinson come off the field.

Stack it up and the math gets ugly. Take McBride away and Wilson is there. If Bourne is your third receiver and Jacoby Brissett is sitting back there dissecting you from the neck up, with arm strength that looks as good as it has ever looked, there is no clean answer.

Brissett threw 37 times. Only three of those went toward Harrison, who finished with one catch for 33 yards. Arizona won comfortably anyway.

"I told you before the season, I don't think Carson Beck's going to see the field," Rich said. "I don't think that at all."

His read on Brissett is that the quarterback knows exactly what this is. "If I'm him, I'm thinking this is my moment." Brissett held out and got a raise, then went out and made the case. Rich sent credit to Mike LaFleur as well.

The larger consequence is divisional. If this is the Cardinals team the NFC West is going to see every week, Rich called it the toughest division he can recall in a quarter century of doing this.

Which brings the conversation back around to the team that lost. The promise in Los Angeles was a new approach that would finally get more out of Justin Herbert. Rich wanted to know where it went.

"Same problems," he said. Herbert on the ground. Herbert throwing yolo balls downfield trying to climb back into it. Omarion Hampton put one on the ground. Ladd McConkey got smoked over the middle and left the game, which raises the question of who is catching passes for this team at all.

Quentin Johnston has shown he can do it, and Los Angeles is still waiting for him to do it the way George Pickens does. David Njoku and Oronde Gadsden are on the roster. The offense did not show up regardless.

"You know who they really missed yesterday was Keenan Allen," Rich said.

There were structural warning signs too, going back to last season's offensive line churn and the guard rotation. From the jump, as Rich put it, it was a weird vibe.

That is what makes this the most disappointing loss of Week 1 in his view, ahead of Dallas, because the Cowboys at least lost on the road. The Chargers were 9.5 point home favorites, the biggest spread on the board, against a team plenty of people expect in the top five.

"They were never in it."

The best artifact of the day was a photograph of Brissett walking off the field wearing a look Rich could not place at first.

"It is the look of can you believe what we just did," he said.

He eventually did place it, and it took the conversation somewhere nobody expected. Years ago at the Staten Island Advance, the newspaper he worked for, there was a longtime editor who was difficult to work for. When word went around the building that he had died, everyone exchanged exactly that look. At the funeral, the man's wife shook Rich's hand and told him it would be easier for him now.

Returning to this reality, as Rich said.

He also drew one line for the week ahead. The Herbert discourse is about to get lazy, and the low hanging fruit is that his head is elsewhere because he is engaged to a pop star.

"Don't take that low hanging fruit, man," Rich said. He does not question the want to, or the drive, or any of it. The scheme is Mike McDaniel's job and the execution is the players' job, and neither showed up. They even gave up a blocked punt.

So when the caller said all three phases, he was not exaggerating.