The Chargers aren’t treating that 83-yard punt return touchdown like a harmless preseason hiccup, and Ryan Ficken made that plain Tuesday.
Los Angeles’ special teams coordinator said the breakdown in the preseason loss to the San Francisco 49ers was bigger than one man, even though JK Scott was clearly in the middle of the conversation. Ficken pointed first to the unit as a whole, saying the coverage failed to do its job when the return flipped into a long score.
“It was a great punt. Great operation with that, and it was poor coverage,” Ficken said.
Ficken said the Chargers “fell short on that on coverage all-around, lost contain by the third man out,” adding, “Good learning for us in a preseason game.”
That return exposed a chain of problems in the coverage unit. The Chargers lost contain, which gave Cowing room to get to the outside and turn the play into a huge gain. Preseason or not, Ficken didn’t sound interested in soft-pedaling it.
Scott’s role in the play has already been a talking point inside the building. Head coach Jim Harbaugh previously said Scott needed to have a plan to make a tackle in that situation and that it was something the team needed to work on.
Ficken went even further on Tuesday, calling himself “extremely disappointed” that the veteran punter did not make the tackle.
At the same time, the Chargers are not pinning the entire touchdown on Scott. Ficken’s comments made it clear the coverage breakdown started before Scott ever had a chance to clean it up, with multiple players failing to hold their assignments.
Still, Scott ended up in the spot where he could have stopped the touchdown, and he didn’t.
That matters more because of who Scott is on this roster. The Chargers have leaned on him since signing him in 2022, and he’s been one of the steadier pieces in their special teams operation.
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