Jim Harbaugh has plenty to sort through after the Los Angeles Chargers stumbled to 0-5, but after Sunday’s latest loss, he didn’t have much of an answer about how to steady things.
The Chargers dropped their home game against the Denver Broncos, even though SoFi Stadium in Inglewood looked as if it were packed mostly with Broncos fans. Justin Herbert’s day was rough from start to finish: he threw for just 121 yards and committed two costly turnovers in the defeat.
Los Angeles came into the game with a pile of injuries across the offense, but that only explains so much. The bigger issue is that the unit has looked flat all season, and the results have been just as ugly.
After the game, Harbaugh was asked what message he had for his team right now. His response said plenty.
"I don't know what that message is,"
For a head coach to sound that stuck only five games into a season is a bad sign, especially for a team that entered the year with Super Bowl expectations. The arrival of Mike McDaniel as offensive coordinator was supposed to unlock Herbert and push the offense to a new level.
Instead, Herbert has looked out of sync in the new scheme and has been making mistakes that don’t usually show up in his game. Late in Sunday’s loss, he threw an interception straight to a waiting Broncos defender, another moment that underscored how far off track things have gone.
The Chargers now turn to a Week 6 road matchup against the unbeaten Kansas City Chiefs. After that comes a bye week, and a 0-6 start is very much in play.
If that happens, changes would be hard to avoid. Trades and firings could be coming, with McDaniel looking like the most obvious candidate to take the fall. Harbaugh’s future is less clear, though moving on from him in the middle of the season would be hard to justify.
For now, the Chargers are winless, the offense is lost, and even Harbaugh doesn’t seem to have the words to explain it.
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