EL SEGUNDO — Now, the hard part. The next step.
Jim Harbaugh attacked his first season as the Chargers head coach with what he would call enthusiasm unknown to mankind.
The challenge? Mustering up the same enthusiasm in Year Two. Or twice as much, maybe?
“The mantra is competitors welcome.” – Harbaugh’s Harbaughism of choice Wednesday when he spoke to media with his father, Jack Harbaugh, seated in the back of the pre-practice news conference, decked out from head to toe in Chargers gear.
“That was the mantra last year. That’s the mantra this year,” Jim Harbaugh continued. “Today, and it’ll be the same tomorrow.
“As it was yesterday, it is today, it will be tomorrow.”
A sage assessment, for certain, but the Chargers surely want set their sights on doing something different come January.
Indeed, matter-of-factly Harbaugh said Wednesday they’ve set their coordinates for the Super Bowl: “We’re gonna do it or die trying.” What are the chances? Well, FanDuel gives the Chargers the 12th-best odds in a 32-team league. But first the Chargers would have to find their way past the wild-card round.
The last time they did that was in 2018, when franchise quarterback Justin Herbert was a junior studying biology at Oregon and not yet a $262 million mild-mannered man.
In six years since, the Chargers have just two wild-card appearances and only heartache and humiliation to show for them. The epic collapse against Jacksonville in 2023 and last season’s season-ending letdown against the Houston Texans, who had Harbaugh’s crew looking anything but competitive.
That stunning 32-12 loss on Jan. 11 put a damper on what had been a fun season, an 11-6 season – a really impressive season if you didn’t squint and look too closely.
Herbert won more games and threw fewer interceptions (three) than ever before in his five-year NFL career. New offensive coordinator Greg Roman had the team attacking with enthusiasm through the air and via play action. The Chargers’ defense gave up only 301 points, the fewest in the league.
Harbaugh had Bolts fans feeling hope again.
But since last season closed with a whimper, running back Najee Harris was injured in a fireworks explosion on the Fourth of July. Linebacker Denzel Perryman was arrested on a felony weapons charge in early August. The NCAA issued a 10-year “show cause” order against Harbaugh for a sign-stealing scheme that happened during his coaching tenure at Michigan.
Good thing Chargers fans don’t believe in curses or bad omens, right?
Because it’s going to take a positive charge for the Chargers just to equal last season’s record – and some extra juice to surpass it. That, of course, is what fans will be expecting. The next step.
That’s so even though the Chargers’ schedule promises the NFL’s toughest slate of pass defense, third-toughest slate of run defenses and the 11th-toughest schedule overall. Even though the only playoff team the Chargers beat last year was the Denver Broncos (twice), losing their other five matchups with playoff opponents.
Progress will be paramount, never mind the fact that the Chargers have a queue of quality quarterbacks lined up to face them this season after cycling through a host of backup, first-year or or soon-to-benched QBs last year, when the proven signal-callers – Patrick Mahomes, Lamar Jackson, Joe Burrow and Baker Mayfield – went 5-1 against the Chargers.
First up: Mahomes – in Brazil. The Chargers kick off the season against the Chiefs next week in São Paulo. Bolting off the line, uphill, with a long business trip and a tough assignment.
Meanwhile, the Chargers’ own star quarterback is still getting knocked for not being clutch enough.
For not being enough of a killer in fourth quarters, for being 6-13 in games decided by a field goal over the past four years, and, of course, for being 0-2 in the postseason.
But Harbaugh will only tell us all how enamored he remains with Herbert – whose touchdown-to-interception ratio last season ranked eighth all-time among QBs who threw at least 15 TDs.
Harbaugh’s message to Herbert after a year as his coach: “Not to change a thing.”
As it was yesterday, it is today, it will be tomorrow.
But maybe better yet: As it was in the first quarter, it is in the second and third, more of that in the fourth … all the way into 2026?