This Outcome Should Surprise No One
When it was announced that the Los Angeles Chargers were hiring Jim Harbaugh as their next head coach, I figured that they would contend almost immediately. It’s in his nature as a head coach to turn around a program in short time. It was no different with his time in the NFL when he coached the San Francisco 49ers. With the Chargers, they already had an established quarterback in Justin Herbert. The defense had some established parts in Derwin James, Khalil Mack and Joey Bosa. With some tweaking the team could be a Wild Card team in no time. That was apparent with their win this past Saturday against the lowly New England Patriots. As I’ve joked for many years, the ‘Chokin’ Chargers’ would always find a way to lose against an easy opponent or blow a huge lead late in the game. That wasn’t going to be the case against the Patriots and it shouldn’t be with a Jim Harbaugh led team. It shouldn’t surprise anyone that the Chargers accomplished the task of winning and clinching a spot in the playoffs with relative ease since hiring Harbaugh.
If No One Noticed It, Did It Really Happen?
Like most of you, on Christmas Day I was preoccupied with other more important things. Yes, the two terrible games that were played on that day were on, but were mostly background noise. The second one especially with the Houston Texans only scoring two points via a safety. The Baltimore Ravens absolutely trounced the Texans from start to finish. It’s easy to see that Houston is likely headed for an early exit even with them hosting a Wild Card game. They have no cohesiveness on offense currently. The injuries to WRs Stefon Diggs and recently Tank Dell have taken its toll and opposing defenses really only have to worry about Nico Collins. RB Joe Mixon can’t get anything going and QB C.J. Stroud is having a sophomore slump. The defense with the struggles on offense can’t carry them against superior opponents and even ones that they should easily defeat. Case in point with their November 24th loss to the Tennessee Titans at home. The NFL got what they wanted, which was over 20 million eyeballs to see just how flawed this Texans team is when push comes to shove. For Houston’s sake, they better figure it out before the playoffs start. The Chargers or the Steelers will easily dispatch them the way things currently stand.
This Team Was Never In It
When you’ve lost Pat McAfee, you know things have gone south in a bad way with the Indianapolis Colts. It wasn’t a win and you’re in scenario for them, but they had to win in order to keep their slim playoff hopes alive. They played the worst team in the NFL in the New York Giants who had scored 20 or more points this season only four times before Sunday. The Giants ended up scoring 45 points on the Colts. You could make the argument that the Colts were playing with a backup quarterback and that’s why they were out of sync. They’ve played with QB Joe Flacco a few times this season already and they’ve had some good results, but also not so good. One thing is abundantly clear though, there is a serious culture problem in that building. McAfee didn’t go far enough in going after the top tier of the organization. The owner Jim Irsay and general manager Chris Ballard. They are the ones who hired the coaches and brought in the players that are contributing to this gigantic organizational problem. Irsay has been fortunate to have two Super Bowl appearances to his name with one victory coming thanks to having QB Peyton Manning for those trips. Since then it has been a disaster with the incredible fortune of getting to draft QB Andrew Luck after letting Manning go and squandering that by not putting the proper offensive line around him to keep him upright. Luck’s early retirement was the first warning sign that there were problems, but band-aids have been constantly applied. In fairness they didn’t have much to choose from in the 2023 draft when they drafted QB Anthony Richardson. Yet, they chose potential over actual prowess in selecting him after only one full season as a starter in college at Florida. His sophomore season in the NFL has been awful. In 11 starts he hasn’t completed more than 50% of his passes and as McAfee pointed out, Richardson did ‘tap out’ of a game earlier this season because he was ‘tired’ and needed a breather. Now with this kind of game that ended their chances of making the playoffs, questions have begun to be asked as to what will become of the power structure of the organization. Irsay won’t be going anywhere anytime soon, so there’s no hope in that being remedied. Will he end up replacing everyone and hire competent people like he had with Peyton Manning? Doubtful, but Irsay needs to look in the mirror and admit his faults and course correct quickly. The NFL doesn’t need another franchise to compete with the likes of the Cleveland Browns, Las Vegas Raiders and the New York Jets for incompetence from top to bottom.
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