The Chargers Insist They Are Close, But To What?
The Chargers paid lip service to fixing the self-inflicted errors that plagued them in an opening loss, but judging by the first possession Sunday against the Raiders, talk is cheap.
After crossing the 50-yard line, rookie speedster Brennan Thompson dropped a perfectly thrown pass on a deep crosser on first down. Moments later, on a third down, Justin Herbert stepped through a blitzing Raider and whipped an off-platform sidearm pass to Thompson again, only for it to be broken up in the instant before it hit the rookie's gloves.
The most demoralizing part was that his teammate, tight end Oronde Gadsden II slapped the ball to the ground. That's right. The tight end would have been credited for a pass breakup (PBU), if he played defense.
On the ensuing field goal attempt, the snap arrived a bit too high, and holder J.K. Scott couldn't find the laces of the football to spin before he set it in place for Cameron Dicker.
Dicker clanged the 58-yard field goal attempt off the post.
"I know it's a cliché in football, but it's so close," said coach Jim Harbaugh.
Close to what, though?
They can't find the laces on the ball!
Two drives after the missed field goal, Herbert attempted to pass to tight end David Njoku, who had created separation on an out-breaking route on the left sideline. The pass zipped into Njoku's hands perfectly in stride and then began to ricochet between them as if Herbert had taken it from a microwave and not from the center.
The Raiders converged as Njoku played patty-cake, bobbling the ball into the hands of rookie cornerback Hezekiah Masses.
"David makes that play 99 times out of 100," said offensive coordinator McDaniel. "We have to make those plays."
That type of one-in-a-hundred calamity happened over and over against the Raiders.
The moving parts are moving—into each other's path. The bells and whistles are producing. They are producing noise. The attack looks so discombobulated in moments that even player movement before the snap has become hazardous. It's been that type of start.
In the 4th quarter, the Chargers faced a 3rd-and-1 down, 17-14.
Uncertain if the previous play had resulted in a new set of downs or faced with a short-yardage third down, the play call arrived later than expected. Needing less than a yard, where a fullback dive or a QB sneak might typically suffice, McDaniel sent in 12 personnel ( one back, two tight ends) and set Herbert 5 yards behind the center in shotgun.
With the play clock running down and his teammates in their stances, Herbert sent receiver Tre Harris in motion from the strong side and called for the snap. Rookie center Jake Slaughter didn't hear the initial call, which threw the timing off a bit more. By the time he snapped the ball, Harris was directly behind him. Despite a panic-stricken attempt to jump clear of the ball, the snap hit Harris below the knee and caromed backwards.
Herbert jumped on the ball; one of five fumbles that the Chargers recovered in an afternoon-long game of Russian Roulette. Herbert slapped the ground in frustration and yelled.
When asked what happened, Herbert gave the type of answer a teenager gives their guidance counselor about why their attendance has been so bedraggled. "Because I miss a lot of class."
"The play clock was running low, and I sent the motion, and tried to get the ball snapped, and it hit Tre," said Herbert.
McDaniel was more open to talking about the failure to convert, and how he tries to take the macro view with regard to assessing the frustrations that they all feel. Addressing how, in the NFL, results are the last word in adjudicating one's performance.
"My expectation is that people are saying, "What are you doing?" Because it didn't work. And if
it worked, it might be, "That's cool. You're in the shotgun."
“What I know how to do is evolve. And so I think it’s kind of lazy to just say, ‘Okay, there’s the result. Not good. Let’s do the opposite.’ That’s not why I’m here. That being said, you don’t just point a finger and say, ‘Well, it worked before.’ So I think all of that is being taken under consideration.”
Harbaugh echoed the sentiment that a holistic view will facilitate improvement.
"Everything we can find a way to improve, that's what we are attacking."
"There are some things being learned the hard way. . . to really find that sweet spot and that precision," said Harbaugh.
The Chargers' five turnovers are tied for second-most in the league; a stat already mitigated by the number of fumbles that the Chargers have been fortunate enough to recover on their own.
Through two games, the Chargers lead the league with seven false starts. Both games were played at SoFi Stadium, which does not bode well with road trips to Buffalo and Seattle pending. Those venues will make the center-to-quarterback exchange impossible to hear.
The schedule makers did the team no favors. There aren't any "get right" games on the horizon, though Harbaugh refuses to look ahead publicly.
"When the schedule came out, I looked at it as a very tough 17-game stretch, and we are attacking it one game at a time."
In what has become a weekly crucible, assessing how much blame should be placed at the feet of their star quarterback continues to drive fan engagement. Every Herbert game now is a recrimination of how publicly his defenders have run out of runway. His 53.3 PFF passing grade against Las Vegas included four turnover-worthy plays and some suspicious ball handling near his own goal line that resulted in a fumble.
"It's moving on to the next play, and understand that we're close," said Herbert. "We've made mistakes. How do we fix it?"
For Harbaugh, who has been quick to praise his quarterback, the story was not how much his teammates have been letting him down.
"I feel like, yeah, two interceptions where really he did exactly what he was supposed to do, but he understands that's football," said Harbaugh. "He believes in his teammates. He trusts them."
"I saw improvement," said Harbaugh. "A lot of that game was, you know, talk about statistics, but, yeah, some of those margins is where we came up short."
Their next opportunity to reclaim some of those margins comes Sunday in Buffalo, where they face an undefeated Bills team that is averaging 38.5 points per game.
"There's no magic formula," said McDaniel. "It's not like we're going to use a wand and score 40. We have to put in the work and do better with our opportunities."
McDaniel's offense ranks 30th (out of 32) in EPA per play as well as scoring drive rate. You can't place the blame on a single position group either: the rebuilt offensive line ranks 25th in overall Pro Football Focus grades and has committed some egregious pre-snap penalties. Right tackle Joe Alt played one of the worst games of his career Sunday; penalized for three false starts and a holding call against Maxx Crosby that resulted in a safety.
The self-inflicted procedural penalties may truly be the consequences of not enough time on-task in the new system. Theoretically, those margins could look much better with discipline and confidence, but the Chargers are already running out of time.
"There is no time for us to be patient with how we are playing," said Herbert.
McDaniel has tried to take ownership of the levers that he admits he might have pulled differently in certain situations. That accountability is the starting point of his own film sessions with the team.
"I felt like we were more prepared to score more points than we have, and who cares what I was expecting? The tape is the tape. My job is to coach these guys and put them in good positions. I start the tape off when I meet with the players, making sure they know the things that I absolutely know that I can be better at."
Scoring only 14 points per game (fourth-fewest in the NFL) while converting 31.8 percent of third-down attempts (sixth-lowest), signifies how bad process has crippled the offensive results.
On Thursday, McDaniel was asked if he would consider simplifying things for his players.
“Of course I consider,” said McDaniel. “I consider pretty much everything. What’s important for my position is that if I’m saying not to overreact either way, good or bad, I can’t do the same. I have to assess."
"We just have to be better," said Herbert. " That's not good enough. You can't expect to win games like that playing like that, and we have to be better."
Despite spending the afternoon trying to get out of their own way, the Chargers were still in a position to win the game.
With less than five minutes in the game and the Chargers driving to either tie or possibly win the game, Omarion Hampton burst through the line and just as quickly fumbled for the second time in as many games (37 touches).
Though every previous click of the revolver had not contained a bullet, the sixth fumble of the day bounced directly into the arms of the Raiders and killed any chances of a comeback.
In his three years at North Carolina, Hampton touched the ball 695 times and fumbled just six times. Which is what the tape says.
As Harbaugh and so many others echoed, the Chargers are that close. That close to winning and losing; that close to being labeled a "fumbler" with a target painted on his back—which is what the tape says.
"We got to look each other in the eye, man, and just tell the truth and just get better," said safety Derwin James. "Because right now, that shit just looks trash. . . . I'm angry, but being angry don't fix anything. Being angry don't fix the problem that we have. We have to get it fixed. I feel like we're a couple of plays away."
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