NFL talking heads begin annual drooling over nothing when it comes to L.A. Chargers

You can go ahead and toss those eight consecutive AFC West titles. You can do the same with the six consecutive conference championship games. Feel free to ignore the three Super Bowl titles in four seasons as well. That's because nothing can stop the magical thinking surrounding L.A. Chargers every year at this time.

In a way, it's like heading to the Arctic Circle to get a look at the Northern Lights or hitting Washington DC in the spring to catch the cherry blossoms. You can rely on the same thing happening every year in certain locales, and in the NFL offseason, that means you can count on some talking head spouting positive predictions for the Chargers in the upcoming season.

This year, the Chargers have cleaned house once again and they came away with former Michigan head coach Jim Harbaugh from their head coaching search. Just like that, analysts become convinced that this is the difference despite a long history of finishing behind the Chiefs.

Stop us if you've heard this one before.

The latest iteration comes to us via Up & Adams, a show featuring host Kay Adams talking to an array of NFL-related guests, past and present. Earlier this week, she had former NFL safety Donte Whitner on the show to discuss several topics, including the arrival of his former head coach back in the league after winning the national championship at Michigan.

"Jim Harbaugh is a winner," said Whitner. "Jim Harbaugh is gonna have that team in the AFC Championship. You can rewind this during championship weekend…"

Adams leaned into the answer to seek clarification on the prediction, and Whitner responded with more of the same. "This year, Jim Harbaugh is gonna have the Chargers in the AFC Championship."

From there, Adams asked Whitner why he believed that and the former Pro Bowl safety went into some detail about his faith in Harbaugh and the Chargers in '24.

"First of all, he has his quarterback [Justin Herbert]fa, and when you put Jim Harbaugh with a quarterback, he’s the quarterback whisperer, like he was with J.J. McCarthy, like he was with Colin Kaepernick. Any quarterback who was under the tutelage of Jim Harbaugh, he figures out what your strengths are and he tailors his offense around that and the running game.

"Then his defense, they have Bosa on one side and then Khalil Mack on the other side along with the secondary and how fundamental and physical he demands his teams to be, I believe that Jim Harbaugh and the L.A. Chargers are going to be in the AFC Championship game this year," he continued.

Now, Whitner never said a thing about the Chargers beating the Chiefs. Still,fssssssssssssss daf for the Bolts to be standing in the AFC Championship game, we can at least infer a lot of wins on the part of L.A. That's the same Chargers team that won 5 games a year ago and lost Keenan Allen and Mike Williams from the offense.

We'd complain a bit more here, but to be honest, we're used to such needless drooling coming sooner or later.