INGLEWOOD – This is what good teams do.
They take advantage of the downtrodden teams on their schedule. They keep pounding until the other side cracks. They’re relentless in all three phases.
And yes, these Chargers are a good team. Maybe even good enough to stand up to the still undefeated and defending champ Kansas City Chiefs, and we’ll find out more about that challenge for AFC West supremacy when the teams meet a month from now in KC, Dec. 8 to be exact.
Sunday they took care of business against a weaker opponent. The Tennessee Titans brought a 2-6 record into SoFi Stadium Sunday – albeit with a one-game winning streak, having beaten equally downtrodden New England in overtime last week. The Chargers wore them down, 27-17, methodically and emphatically, with what amounted to a concession touchdown by the Titans with 49 seconds to play making the game as close as it was.
This is what John Spanos, president of football operations and son of owner Dean Spanos, had to have had in mind when he decided to try to lure Jim Harbaugh back to the NFL. It may be a little more sudden than expected but the transformation, from this time a year ago and what turned out to be the final weeks of Brandon Staley’s coaching tenure to now, is striking.
They are 6-3, have won three in a row and could have had a five-game winning streak but for a flat offensive performance three weeks ago at Arizona … and really, the Cardinals are on a roll themselves, having won four in a row and five out of six after polishing off the Jets Sunday in Glendale.
But so are the Chargers. And in a sport where the players, at least, believe that momentum can carry over from week to week – even in a league where parity is the ideal – that belief, and the consistency that results, can be powerful.
“Guys are just pouring their toughness and their talent and their effort into our football team, and it multiplies,” Harbaugh said Sunday afternoon. “I mean, you see that from Joey Bosa. Daiyan Henley, the way he’s been playing. Tuli (Tuipulotu). Justin Herbert. Gus Bus (Gus Edwards). J.K. (Dobbins). Those are force multipliers.
“And, you know, I know everybody felt it and everybody saw it, but I mean, I might have been the one that said it: Hey, this is what we want to do. This is how we want to be. This is what we’re doing. Let’s keep doing it.”
Two of the reasons for the transformation, an improved running game and a stingier defense, were on display again Sunday.
The Chargers went into the game leading the league in scoring defense, 12.6, and would have reduced that further but for the Titans’ last touchdown drive. Only once have they given up as many as 20 points, and that was in a Week 3 loss at Pittsburgh.
Sure, there’s room for improvement; Tennessee averaged 5.7 yards per offensive play. But the Chargers sacked Tennessee quarterback Will Levis seven times, with Tui Tuipulotu and Bud Dupree getting two apiece and Daiyan Henley, Poona Ford and Joey Bosa getting one each.
Bosa’s was his 70th career sack, moving him into second on the franchise’s all-time list behind Leslie O’Neal, a stalwart of the San Diego Chargers defense from 1986 through ’95.
Meanwhile, the Chargers’ offense had 145 rushing yards and 164 passing yards, the kind of balance that, well, keeps opposing defenses off-balance. That rushing total included 32 yards in nine carries by Herbert, who scored a running touchdown and passed for one, finding Quentin Johnston wide-open in the end zone in the third quarter. Six different Chargers receivers caught passes.
They set a tone with a drive of nearly seven minutes on their opening possession, though they had to settle for a field goal. They scored their first touchdown on Herbert’s 4-yard scramble on a fourth-and-1 play, right after the two-minute warning at the end of the first half. They set up another scoring drive with Derius Davis’ 56-yard punt return and drove 95 yards in 11 plays for the score, making it 27-10 early in the fourth quarter.
The whole package represents a transformation that may be quicker than most expected, maybe even internally. There’s toughness, there’s passion and there’s consistency, and the source is easy to find, even while Harbaugh tries to deflect the praise to those above him in the organization.
“He has an infectious attitude,” Henley said. “That dude and his energy, it shoots right out to you like a cannon, man, the way he comes at you. … When we met Jim, he comes as himself. And he approaches everyone that same way.”
“I think the passion and the consistency goes hand in hand, it just shows that, you know, we’re committed to this game,” Henley added. “We’re committed to our love for the sport and we’re trying to win. We’re committed to trying to win. We’re trying to go plus three and then go plus four and etc., etc. So right now we’re just moving on to the next week and trying to be better.”
The afterglow of victory lasts hours, if that. Maybe six hours, Harbaugh said at the podium, before his own thoughts turn to the next opponent: Cincinnati, next Sunday night at home before NBC’s cameras.
“You can enjoy it tonight. That’s about it,” defensive lineman Morgan Fox said. “Enjoy tonight, get get body work tomorrow and get ready to roll on Tuesday.”
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Momentum from week to week does exist, Fox said, and while positive momentum can be exhilarating, “bad momentum can be crushing,” he said. “But at the end of the day, you have to treat every week with a life of its own.”
“Your success is razor thin,” he added. “So we just remain locked in. And everyone has a mindset that, you know, every week we’re preparing and playing like it’s a Super Bowl. So we’re coming in, focused on the details and just trying to get better week to week.”
After all, the Bengals await. One week at a time, right?
jalexander@scng.com