Jim Harbaugh was lost on Sunday night.
The Chargers had a pitiful offensive performance in a 16-3 wild-card loss to the Patriots, and apparently, Los Angeles never figured out what New England’s defense was doing to them.
Patriots.com reporter Evan Lazar posted on X that veteran linebacker Robert Spillane said he was being told by the Chargers’ offensive personnel that they had no idea what type of defense New England was playing.
“Zak [Kuhr, defensive coordinator] has been great all year. He keeps the dial spinning. He keeps offenses guessing,” Spillane said postgame. “After the game, just talking to a few of the guys on their team, they had no clue what we were doing. And they came up and said that: ‘We had no clue what you guys were in all game.’”
The Chargers have been playing with a skeleton crew for much of the season after losing star offensive tackles Joe Alt and Rashawn Slater and forcing quarterback Justin Herbert to run for his life.
“Yeah, we weren’t good enough,” Harbaugh said postgame. “Didn’t get enough points sustaining the drives. Left our defense out on the field too much in terms of time of possession. Yeah, just wasn’t our night.”
The biggest moment of the game really put them behind the eight ball early.
After a Drake Maye interception at their own 10-yard line, the Chargers took over and were unable to score, turning the ball over on downs.
“ It’s just on us to go out there and execute,” Harbaugh said. “You know, like we always say, we have to score points in the red zone, convert on third down, limit turnovers, and we didn’t do any of those today.”
Herbert ended the game 19-for-32 with 159 yards with no touchdowns or interceptions. Most concerning is that Herbert was sacked six times and pressured 30 times on just 31 pass attempts, according to Pro Football Focus.
They now head into the offseason to pick up the pieces and get healthy with their two offensive tackles returning from injury, while the Patriots match up with the winner of Texans and Steelers, who play the final wild-card game on Monday night.
