3 Biggest Issues The Chargers Must Address During The Bye Week

The Los Angeles Chargers are 2-2 heading into their bye week. Head coach Jim Harbaugh said the team won’t be getting extra rest, but taking the time to address things they need to ‘ get better at. ‘ He called the game free week, ‘Opportunity Week’ — “Opportunity to improve in areas that we need.”

Harbaugh acknowledged that the defense and the team as a whole could perform at a higher level. He has expressed on several occasions his desire to go from good to great and he said the team is very close to being great.

Where they have been great is on defense. They are the NFL’s second-best defense by EPA/play, allowing a successful play rate of just 37.8. They lead the league in EPA when defending against the run and are seventh against passing attacks. They have managed to do this with several players missing time. Joey Bosa and Derwin James missed last week’s Kansas City Chiefs game and several members of the secondary missed practice time due to injury.

Chargers Bye Week Checklist

Get Healthy

The Chargers are banged up at several important positions, including the most important position in the sport. But their injury report last week featured 11 starters, not including Khalil Mack who was on the report for taking a not injury-related rest day.

Many of those players like Kristian Fulton and Hayden Hurst were able to play, but ultimately player availability will be the Chargers’ best path to a successful 2024 season.

Justin Herbert’s injury is the most murky due to the lack of transparency by the organization. It is not only his ankle injury that has kept him from full practice participation for much of the last two weeks, but also how his plantar fascia injury is affecting his day-to-day and game-day performances.

It seems they dodged a bullet as it pertains to Joe Alt’s injury, but Rashawn Slater’s return timeline is still unknown.

Fix The Passing Game, By Fixing the Receiving Corps

Right now, the Chargers are 31st in the NFL in passing yards per game with 136 yards. The New England Patriots are the one team with a worse passing game and they don’t have Justin Herbert under center.

Of course, a lot has to do with the play calling. Of the four games Herbert has played with Greg Roman calling plays all fall in his top 10 fewest passing attempts of his career. But when he decides to throw the ball Roman is not less aggressive than Herbert’s past coordinators. In fact, Herbert’s deep shot percentage is the highest of his career. But no one is on the other end of those passes who can catch them.

Herbert has completed just three of his 11 throws of 20 air yards or more. That is a 27.3 completion percentage, the lowest mark of his career. In fact he isn’t getting much help on intermediate depth passes either. His completion percentage on throws between 10 and 19 air yards is just 35.7 percent, 32nd among starting quarterbacks.

Chargers receivers are 23rd in separation, 28th in contested catch rate, and dead last in FTN’s Created Catches statistic. They also haven’t done much when they do have the ball in their hands. They are 22nd in yards after the catch.

The Chargers will get DJ Chark back soon, which will inject a good amount of experience into the room, but hopefully, Joe Hortiz is getting teams on the phone to discuss a trade for a top-tier pass catcher.

Drill Down On Penalties, Challenge Flags, and Timeouts

Jim Harbaugh really screwed up last week when using timeouts and challenge flags against the Chiefs. And frankly, those are inexcusable mistakes. He isn’t the only coach who muffs these types of decisions, but Harbaugh struggled to explain his rationalization for making them – in one instance seemingly lacked the understanding that using a timeout was effectively the same as using a challenge.

NFL sidelines are chaotic places, but this kind of confusion and disorganized approach is shocking from a Harbaugh-led team and Harbaugh himself.

The Chargers are far from the most penalized teams in the league, but 12 of their 26 penalties have come pre-snap. Harbaugh, himself, thinks of those as coaching errors — not preparing your team properly nor not communicating clearly and in a timely fashion. They are tied for the ninth most presnap penalties in the league.

More must-reads:

• Chargers Worst Case Scenario Averted: Cornerstone Player Back in Practice
• Los Angeles Chargers Fans Owe Joe Lombardi An Apology
• No Rest For The Chargers Entering ‘Opportunity’ Week