Bold predictions for each AFC West team heading into 2024
Los Angeles Chargers
Is Jim Harbaugh an upgrade from Brandon Staley? Anyone with a brain would tell you yes—unequivocally yes. Harbaugh is fresh off of a National Championship at the University of Michigan and primed to make another triumphant return to the NFL sidelines. He's got Justin Herbert! The Chargers were a Herbert injury and a Staley brain away from being elite last year! The perpetual preseason darlings are back like they never left.
Somehow things are ramped up this year, even compared to overhyped Chargers teams of the past. The Harbaugh impact is very real, and it's elevated by the fact that the new Chargers head man is without question one of the more eccentric personalities in any level of football—so much so that when he initially moved to southern California from Michigan (before his family made the move) he stayed in his RV.
Harbaugh is obviously wild and crazy. You don't have taglines like "the human body craves contact" and advising former Michigan quarterback Wilson Speight not to eat chicken because it is a "nervous bird" out there without a dash of mental crookedness. But the same level of borderline insanity that governs Harbaugh's soundbites also permeates his vision of the game of football, which is one that has taken him to some of the highest peaks of the profession.
Can Harbaugh take the Chargers where he couldn't take the 49ers in his first stint as an NFL head coach? That remains to be seen. The more interesting question is: what does this iteration of the Chargers—the one without Mike Williams, Keenan Allen, and Austin Ekeler—do for Jim Harbaugh in his first season back?
The Chargers come into 2024 with several aging, oft-injured stars on the defensive side of the ball and with a beefed-up offensive line, Justin Herbert, and not much else (seemingly) on the offensive side. Win the division? I think we're talking about the exact opposite by mid-season for Los Angeles.
Harbaugh flirted with the idea, at least indirectly, of Herbert maybe not being his guy. There was minor speculation that the Chargers may be in the market for Harbaugh's most recent Michigan signal caller JJ McCarthy in last April's NFL Draft. While they have held off on the impulsive quarterback procurement thus far, something tells me that if the Chargers stumble out of the gates, Herbert could be on the trade block.
The Chargers' schedule starts fairly favorably. They only play one playoff team (the Chiefs) from 2023 in the season's first 7 weeks. But a November 3 date with the Browns highlights a portion of their schedule that goes Cleveland, Tennessee, Cincinnati, and Baltimore. If the Chargers are somehow 3-4 or 2-5 going into that stretch, the trade deadline is November 5. Could they look to deal Herbert if the season feels lost and completely restart on offense? Would the Vikings be willing to play ball for a proven pro who could put them over the top and bring McCarthy to his college coach in a roundabout way?
The Chargers as we knew them are nearly dead, and I think year 1 in the Jim Harbaugh era puts the Brandon Staley era completely 6 feet under from a personnel standpoint. Herbert will be dealt and the Chargers will finish third in the AFC West behind Kansas City and Las Vegas, but slightly ahead of the self-checkout Broncos.