Are the Los Angeles Chargers doomed already? After two games, that seems to be the consensus amongst fans. While it's possible for teams to recover after a 0-2 start, most critics believe that Los Angeles won't be one of these teams. After their performance in their first two games, they're ready to pull the plug on the Chargers hype train.
However, the players aren't losing hope quite yet. Quarterback Justin Herbert believes that despite their dismal record, LA is much closer to turning the corner than fans think.
“Yeah, I think we make a couple of mistakes here and there,” Herbert said, per Ari Meirov. “And, you know, it's a it's a different game. So there are a lot of plays that we left out there. And so I think it's promising to see all the plays that we could have made and how close we are. There are a bunch of plays where we were very close. Things got tipped, or we came up short. … It’s promising to look at.”
The main reason why fans are losing hope with the Chargers is due to who they lost to. Other 0-2 teams lost to objectively good teams, or at the very least teams that were projected to be better than them. The Miami Dolphins, for example, were projected to contend for the first overall pick, and their losses to the Las Vegas Raiders and the San Francisco 49ers reflect that. On the other hand, the Chargers were projected to be a playoff team. Yet, they lost to two teams who are worse than them on paper: the Raiders and the Arizona Cardinals.
The Chargers' offense, in particular, has looked abysmal in their first two games. The partnership between Herbert and new offensive coordinator Mike McDaniel has not quite panned out yet. Herbert's struggles, combined with LA's defense not looking great, has led to some ugly losses.
The Chargers need to get their stuff together before they dig themselves a deeper hole. Unfortunately, their Week 3 matchup is against a white-hot Buffalo Bills team on the road.