LOS ANGELES CHARGERS
NFL Futures Odds at BetOnline:

To Win Super Bowl +2800
To Win AFC Championship +1200
To Win AFC West +300
Regular Season Wins -- Over 9.5 Wins -110, Under 9.5 Wins -120

Coming out of the 2023 season, the Los Angeles Chargers were an absolute mess. As it turned out, Brandon Staley may have been an excellent coordinator, as he had been for the Rams. But things did not go smoothly as a head coach. Aside from his relationships with the players, he was heavily criticized for his in-game decisions.

As far as Charger fans were concerned, the decision on the part of owner Dean Spanos to let Staley go after a 63-21 loss to the Raiders with three games left in the '23 season was most welcome. Of course, the team was by that time was forced to turn to someone named Easton Stick in the wake of an injury to quarterback Justin Herbert.

In the NFL, no team is utterly without hope. Head coaching candidates are always lined up. In this particular case, the team was fortunate that Jim Harbaugh, who had finally won a national championship at Michigan (and found himself embroiled in a sign-stealing scandal), was ready to return to the pro ranks.

A coach who knows what he wants to do

Harbaugh is one of those coaches who comes with a well-defined philosophy, and it has served him well at every stop, whether it was at the University of San Diego, Stanford, or the San Francisco 49ers, before landing back at his alma mater with the Wolverines. He wants to run the ball and minimize mistakes on the part of his quarterback.

So he didn't necessarily have an interest in having Herbert throw the ball all over the place.

In the 2024 season, Herbert's Intended Air Yards per pass attempt (denoting the distance his throws go beyond the line of scrimmage) was 8.6, which was a full yard more than it was the year before. At the same time, his "Bad Throw" percentage dropped from 16.8% to 13.8%.

In 2023, Herbert was 27th in the league in play action passing yards with 517. That figure jumped to 1431 yards last season, which ranked third in the NFL.

This is no accident, because this is part of Harbaugh's plan - to run the ball and use that ground game to open up opportunities when throwing the ball.

Who will Herbert throw it to?

Well, the knock against the Chargers' offense is that the receiver crew isn't all that deep. And they want to take some steps to remedy that. Ladd McConkey (+5000 to lead the NFL in receiving yards at BetOnline) exceeded all expectations in his rookie season, with 82 catches for 1149 yards. Mike Williams, who played for the team in 2017-23 and led the league with 20.4 yards per catch in 2019, was brought back this year after splitting the '24 campaign between the Jets and Steelers. Quentin Johnson, a first-round pick in '23 who had 55 receptions as a sophomore, remains, but Harbaugh & Co. sought to upgrade in the draft.

And they might have with second-round pick Tre Harris, who was on the other end of many of Jaxson Dart's passes at Ole Miss. He's got size (6'3") and can get down the field. Maybe he helps Herbert stretch things. Orande Gadsden II, who was drafted in the the fifth round out of a pass-happy Syracuse system, could brighten up things in the tight end room as he joins Will Dissly and Tyler Conklin.

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Running it over and over.... if they can

All in all, Herbert played out Harbaugh's philosophy pretty well, and that includes minimizing turnovers. He threw just three interceptions in 504 attempts, and that made him the most mistake-free signal-caller in the league. The Chargers as a whole turned the ball over only nine times, which produced a positive ratio of +12. This was obviously a factor in the 11-6 record, which secured a wild card playoff spot.

So what do they have to do to get over the top in the increasingly competitive AFC West?

The answer may lie in ramping up the ground forces - even more than was the case in Harbaugh's first season.

The Chargers just did not throw the ball very much before Harbaugh arrived. Their Run Play Percentage in 2023 was just 39%. That ranked them 27th in the NFL in that category. Last season they rose into the top ten, just short of 45%.

Still, there's something that tells us that Harbaugh doesn't want to stop there. There were three teams that ran the ball more than half the time in 2024 - the world champion Philadelphia Eagles, the Green Bay Packers (who added Josh Jacobs to the lineup) and the Baltimore Ravens, coached by the other Harbaugh (John). Jim Harbaugh acquired two of his brother's running backs (JK Dobbins, Gus Edwards) for last year's squad.

Now there's a new and potentially more productive running back room. Najee Harris was brought on board, and we can see him filling a "workhorse" role if necessary. In each of his four NFL seasons, Harris has topped 1000 yards rushing, yet his career average is just 3.9 yards an attempt. So he is not a spectacular back, but he gives the Chargers the ability to show opponents they are more than willing to run the ball and keep running it.

Harris has also shown that he can catch it out of the backfield. In fact, when he was a rookie he led the league in overall touches. if all goes according to plan, he won't have such a big burden in L.A. The Chargers made the ground game a priority in the draft by virtue of their first-round selection of Omarion Hampton of North Carolina, widely hailed as the #2 running back available (behind Ashton Jeanty of Boise State). He is very much one of those "power-speed" guys, who can take it coast-to-coast on any occasion (with 4.46 speed in the 40) and was third in the nation in yards after contact last season (over 1000).

The Chargers possess one of the best offensive tackle combinations in the NFL, with Rawshawn Slater (two-time Pro Bowler) and Joe Alt (top draft pick in 2024). Yet there is room for improvement along that front. According to ESPN Analytics, the O-line's Pass Block Win Rate and Run Block Win Rate was 11th and 13th, respectively. But to carry out Harbaugh's objective, they have to push people back more.


A couple of X-factors you may not be looking at

One major asset Harbaugh has at his disposal is his offensive coordinator. Greg Roman is known as a running game "guru" with as extensive a playbook as exists in the business. He has done a great job in changing offenses on the fly as well; in San Francisco, he had to develop a scheme that maximized what Colin Kaepernick could do when Alex Smith went down with an injury, and in Baltimore (working for John Harbaugh) he adapted the offense to the skills of Lamar Jackson when he was inserted in place of Joe Flacco.

In each of these cases (and we might add he worked with Tyrod Taylor in Buffalo), Roman had a quarterback who truly fit the "dual-purpose" category. Herbert is primarily a dropback passer, but this is where the "X-factor" part of the equation comes in. The Chargers signed Trey Lance to a contract in the off-season. Lance, who was originally taken third in the draft by the Niners, has not worked out as a pro. In fact, the Cowboys hardly let him take the field the last two seasons.

But he is someone who can use his legs to advance the ball. In his only full season as a starter at North Dakota State, he ran for 1100 yards and 14 touchdowns while throwing 28 TD's without an interception. There is a very real possibility that under the tutelage of Roman, the Bolts could employ a package for Lance that would offer something defenses would have to game plan for.


Yeah, they have to stop people too

We have spent our time concentrating on the L.A. offense. But they'll need defense too, and perhaps the best you can do here is have a degree of tempered enthusiasm.

On the one hand, this was also a stop unit that led the league in points allowed, as well as red zone touchdown percentage (just 45%). And they were fifth best in yards allowed per pass attempt.

On the other hand, they also surrendered 4.7 yards per rush, lost a couple of run-stoppers to free agency and released pricy, oft-injured Pro Bowl pass rusher Joey Bosa.

There is some hope that third-round draft pick Jamaree Caldwell, who played nose tackle at Oregon and Houston, can be of some help, but he's not a game-changer.



Conclusion

In the AFC West, we've seen the Denver Broncos emerge, and the Las Vegas Raiders have made the big "win now" move by bringing Pete Carroll and Geno Smith aboard.

The Kansas City Chiefs aren't too far from being in a transitional phase, which help now needed on the offensive line and in the receiver room.

If the Chargers can indeed develop a dominant ground attack, the door might be wide open for them. But they'll have to solve some of the defensive issues. We'd shade ourselves toward the "Over" (9.5) in the total wins prop.


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