DeadBolts can't lock the door in Jacksonville

An NFL franchise that never stops trying to refine futility.

Joey Bosa

At these moments, it’s comforting to have the NFL’s faintest footprint.

It’s soothing, somehow, to know that the TV viewer share of your games, during the 2022 season, was the league’s lowest.

The Chargers orphaned themselves when they moved out of the town that desperately cared, the place where they brought the dim patina of professional sports when they came from Los Angeles in 1961 and then buffed and polished it until they were San Diego royalty.

Now they’re in a sports-sated L.A. market that rarely acknowledges them, and San Diego must have considered it karmic when the Chargers scuttled a 27-0 lead in Saturday night’s wild-card playoff and lost to Jacksonville, 31-30. But then the Chargers did such things when they still played in Qualcomm Stadium, although nothing this bad.

The record will show that the Chargers had a 5-0 turnover advantage and still lost. They led the Jaguars 30-14 with 3:02 left in the third quarter. The same defense that caught four of Trevor Lawrence’s first nine passes gave up four touchdowns and Riley Patterson’s nervous game-winning field goal in Jacksonville’s final five possessions.

Joey Bosa, who has missed 32 games since the Chargers took him with the third pick in the 2016 draft, sabotaged his team twice. He jumped offside on a third-and-seven, negating a sack by Bryce Callahan that would have put the Jaguars in a fourth-and-23. Instead, Lawrence threw a touchdown to Evan Engram, and Jacksonville was only down 27-14. Then Bosa, who picked up an unsportsmanlike call on the offside, picked up another one as he tried to cite the Jaguars for a false start as Lawrence was throwing a touchdown to Christian Kirk. That penalty allowed Jacksonville to move the conversion attempt to the one-yard-line, which emboldened Jaguars coach Doug Pederson to order a 2-point conversion, which the 6-foot-6 Lawrence converted with ease. Jacksonville thus trailed only 30-28, and could win the game with a field goal, which Patterson barely provided.

“Penalties hurt us,” Staley said. “There were a lot of things that accumulated in the second half, but you can’t lose your composure like that.”

Staley might lose something more valuable. He is 26-25 after three seasons. The past four Chargers coaches have won at least one playoff game, going back to Marty Schottenheimer, who showed up in 2002. Staley has not, despite a roster that’s a magnet for decorated players, including Khalil Mack, Corey Linsley, J.C. Jackson, Kyle Van Noy and Bryan Bulaga. Some have been hurt, some have just flamed out, and none have been able to translate their star power to real accomplishment. Injuries have been unkind, yes, particularly the one that idled second-year tackle Rashawn Slater, but general manager Tom Telesco has packed this roster. When Justin Herbert is the acknowledged king of NFL pocket passers and the Chargers are still 23rd in average-per-pass-attempt, something is wrong, and their long pass play on Saturday was 25 yards. They also didn’t or wouldn’t run effectively, and their three touchdowns came on drives of 18, 16 and 62 yards.

It would be impulsive to fire Staley after this night, but replacing him would not be difficult. If you’re Sean Payton, would you rather coach Russell Wilson or Herbert? There are others, unemployed or otherwise, who would risk flying Southwest Airlines to run the Chargers. And Staley has given owner Dean Spanos the sword. There are all the illogical but entertaining go-for-its in bad fourth-down situations, and there was the mysterious time out in Las Vegas in Game 17 last year. Both the Chargers and the Raiders could have entered the playoffs with a tie. All Staley had to do was sit there and watch the Raiders let the clock run. Instead the Raiders took umbrage to Staley’s time out and played aggressively, and got the field goal that sent the Chargers home.

But the proximate cause of any coaching change will be what happened in the regular season finale this year. It should have been the Chargers’ most inconsequential game in years. They were locked into the No. 5 AFC playoff spot when they played at Denver. Staley played his main guys, including Mike Williams, who makes tougher catches more often than anyone in the NFL. Williams also gets hurt a lot, and in Denver he was loaded onto a cart with what turned out to be a fracture in his back. He wasn’t in Jacksonville, which removed Herbert’s best option.

To be sure, Tom Brady played part of a meaningless game in Atlanta last Sunday, and most of the essential Cowboys were on the field at Washington. But it was a chance Staley had no business taking, with a player who tilts the field whenever he can struggle his way onto it.

After Patterson’s field goal the Chargers took what Al Michaels accurately visualized as an “agonizing transcontinental flight” to the place they nominally call home. Jacksonville moves on. It became the first team since 2000 to win a game while going minus-5 in the turnover column. It was 3-7 earlier this season but rode Lawrence to a couple of 17-point comeback wins. The Jaguars are feisty, and on Saturday were embodied by Roy Robertson-Harris, an undrafted nose tackle from UTEP who had four tackles for loss, and the sack that got Lawrence the ball for his final act.

Pederson likes the green light on fourth down even more than Staley. On the final drive, the Jaguars faced fourth-and-one on the Chargers’ 41. Instead of asking Patterson to open his playoffs by trying a 59-yard field goal, he called time out, watched the Chargers prepare for another lunge by Lawrence, and asked Travis Etienne to skirt the right side, which he did for 25 yards. Ballgame.

And Lawrence, only an NFL sophomore who was spinning his wheels until he took the Jaguars on a 5-game win streak, showed he could take a self-inflicted punch, or four of them. One of his picks was tipped, the other was probably caused by an uncalled holding violaton, and the other two were just poorly placed, and nicely picked by Asante Samuel, who had three of those and was tied for fourth in catches from Lawrence.

But he made better reads in the second half, got better protection, got more competitiveness from his receivers, and was 18 for 23 for three touchdowns and no interceptions. He also prolonged a unique habit. At Cartersville (Ga.) High, Clemson and now the Jaguars, he has never lost a game on a Saturday. (True, Cartersville and he Jags don’t often play on Saturday, but when they do….)

Habits usually linger. The 2012 Chargers had a 24-0 lead over Peyton Manning and the Broncos on a Monday night and lost 35-24. The 2013 Chargers had a 21-point lead over Matt Schwab and the Texans on the first Monday night of the season and lost, 31-28. Those same Chargers led Kansas City 24-3 and lost 33-27 in overtime.

The 2012 Chargers led Baltimore 13-10 before Ray Rice took a short pass from Joe Flacco and converted a fourth-and-29, and the Ravens won 16-13 in overtime. And the 2006 Chargers, who were 14-2 and had home advantage throughout the AFC playoffs, had New England down 21-13 in the fourth quarter when Marlon McCree intercepted Tom Brady. Instead of kneeling, McCree envisioned an epic return, but fumbled to Reche Caldwell. The Patriots wound up winning 24-21.

That’s just Chapter One of the Chargers’ own Football For Dummies manual.

Maurice Jones-Drew, the former Jaguar running back, announced from his analyst’s post at the NFL Network that the Chargers were not safe at all with their 27-7 halftime lead. “They’re a very talented team, but this is the thing, though. This is what the Chargers do,” Jones-Drew said.

And they do it regardless of coach, quarterback, defense, kicker, or locale. They landed early Sunday morning with their identity hanging around their necks, tighter than ever. They’re the team that is rarely watched, but clearly seen.