Plays like the Rivers fumble are far more important at the end of games than they are early on. Trying to recover from such a play with three quarters left is much easier than with 1 minute left. In this case particularly, the Chargers weren’t frantically trying to score when the fumble happened; they were down 1 and already at the edge of field goal range.
For example, there were two roughly similar big plays in this game. In the first quarter, Oakland blocked a punt for a TD, and in the fourth they returned a fumble for a TD. Check the game chart at Advanced NFL Stats. The blocked punt changed the Chargers’ win percentage from 0.30 to 0.17; the fumble changed it from 0.76 to 0.07.
On a related note, I didn’t really realize how much of an epic disaster the Chargers’ special teams have been until I was describing their season to a friend yesterday. The NYT has a good rundown of it.
You are missing the point. If the play had occurred two quarters earlier, they would have frantically been trying to score, since they would have been down 8.
Sure, and they would have been more likely to succeed than they were in the game situation.
They would have been more likely to score on the final drive, yes. They would not have been more likely to win.
But if you move the big play two quarters earlier, then “the final drive” is very unlikely to happen. The whole second half strategy is different. SD knows that they have to recover these points and will play differently, giving them a higher chance to win (and probably a higher chance to lose by more than 8).
Take the Oakland-Arizona game from a couple weeks ago. The big play there was Janikowski missing the FG on the last play. Now he made one earlier in the 4th - missing that one would have been much better for Oakland than missing the one at the gun.
RNATB, you couldn’t be more wrong. I’m frankly surprised to see you cling to such an irrational claim.