EL SEGUNDO — The Chargers acknowledged the obvious in the minutes and hours after their clunker of a loss to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers on Sunday at SoFi Stadium. They didn’t play well offensively or defensively. They didn’t play up to their standards and they paid the price for it in the form of a 40-17 loss.
Here’s what we learned, what we heard and what comes next after the Chargers’ biggest loss of the season, a game in which their NFL-leading defense collapsed in spectacular fashion in the second half, a game in which they looked nothing like a potential AFC wild-card team:
BUMMER ENERGY
It wasn’t so much that the Chargers lost, according to defensive coordinator Jesse Minter, it was the way that they lost that was so troubling. Maybe it was the 30 consecutive points they gave up after taking an all-too-brief 17-10 lead in the second quarter. Maybe it was the 505 yards they gave up.
Something was amiss.
“Any time you don’t win, you’re mad and you’re frustrated, but the way that game went, there was a different vibe I haven’t felt with this group,” Minter said Monday. “This is where you need your leaders, the players, myself. We’ve got to be at our best. It’s a challenge. It’s an opportunity.
“I feel like we’ve done enough things together that we can look at each other. We can have hard conversations. We can have real conversations. We’re not going to sugarcoat anything. We’re not going to act like we did certain things good. We didn’t play the way we needed to play.”
Most alarming was the way the Chargers gave up big plays to the Buccaneers. Tampa Bay quarterback Baker Mayfield (288 passing yards, four touchdowns) threw touchdown passes of 57 and 35 yards to wide receiver Mike Evans (nine catches, 159 yards) in the third quarter, for example. Running back Bucky Irving had a 54-yard rush on his way to a 117-yard day, for another example.
It was the kind of game the Chargers had played in past seasons under the previous coaching regime. If the Chargers believed they had put the explosive plays against them behind them with the hiring of Jim Harbaugh as coach and Minter as defensive coordinator, they were wrong.
The second half was especially worrisome for the Chargers, who were shut out in the third and fourth quarters for the third time in 2024 – tied for the most in the league. The Buccaneers torched them for 27 points and 297 total net yards after halftime. The Buccaneers converted four of seven third downs in the second half and nine of 15 overall (60%).
The 40 points the Chargers gave up Sunday were the most they surrendered since giving up 63 in the Dec. 1, 2023 game against the Las Vegas Raiders that cost Brandon Staley his job as coach. The most they had given up in Harbaugh’s brief tenure was 30 to the Baltimore Ravens on Nov. 25.
“We made a couple of plays in the first half that kept us in the game, but really we didn’t play our brand, our style, our standard of defense,” Minter said. “It can be a one-off if we respond the right way. If we don’t, then it becomes a trend. We have to make sure it was a one-off.
“I just think there hasn’t been a game that got completely away from us like that. When it happens, it happens. First of all, you credit the other team. They kept making plays. You get to a point where certain things in the game plan aren’t working and you start reaching for things to try to fix it.
“And that’s never a good formula.”
SHORT WEEK
The Chargers don’t have the time they need to correct all that went haywire against the Buccaneers before facing the AFC West rival Denver Broncos on Thursday night at SoFi Stadium. They also don’t have all the time they need for quarterback Justin Herbert to rehabilitate his sprained left ankle.
“It was all right,” Herbert said of his mobility Sunday after completing 21 of 33 passes for 195 yards with two touchdowns and one interception. “It’s getting better. Obviously, not where I’d like it to be, but we’ll continue to do the treatment and get everything right so we’ll be ready to go on Thursday.”
WHAT COMES NEXT
The Chargers (8-6) play host to the Broncos (9-5), a team they dominated for three quarters during a comprehensive 23-16 victory in Week 6 in Denver. Broncos quarterback Bo Nix rallied Denver in the fourth quarter with two touchdown passes, and he’s been a handful ever since that game on Oct. 13.
Originally Published:
