Chargers' special teams issues

Football coaches often say that special teams are one-third of the game. Research at Football Outsiders says differently, that the game is about three parts offense, three parts defense, and one part special teams. For the San Diego Chargers, however, special teams is practically all that matters. A pair of blocked punts led to a loss to the Oakland Raiders on Sunday, neatly summarizing the San Diego season as a whole: Despite exceptional play on both offense and defense, the Chargers are 2-3 because they've sported some of the worst special teams play on record. The Chargers' special teams have been so bad we'll have to invent a new statistic to measure them. We'll start with blocked punts, then add in touchdowns allowed on punt returns, and finally touchdowns allowed on kickoff returns. We'll call the final total Special Teams Disasters, or STDs for short.

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