Chargers thrashed by Jaguars in worst loss of the Jim Harbaugh era

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — The numbers don’t lie. But sometimes NFL teams do it.

That’s why All-Pro safety Derwin James Jr. believes the Chargers need to be ruthlessly honest in Sunday’s 35-6 loss to the Jacksonville Jaguars, the most lopsided defeat of the Jim Harbaugh era.

The Jaguars picked up 30 first downs, held the ball for nearly 16 more minutes and held Justin Herbert to a career-low 81 yards passing.

The franchise is coming.

“Sometimes you can lie when you want to protect the other side or protect the player,” James said, standing in a cramped and dark visitors’ locker room. “But I feel like this team is very honest, very transparent and not everyone has soft skin. So I feel like everyone can look in the mirror and we’ll be honest.”

The Chargers came into Jacksonville having won four of five and the Jaguars had lost three in a row. That wasn’t indicative of what was to come, however, as Jacksonville dominated the line of scrimmage and the Chargers were as soft as the balmy day.

A Jaguars defense that entered the game with an NFL-low 12 sacks turned into a tsunami of pass rushes, a tsunami that sacked Herbert twice and pressured him on nearly every dropback, sending him to the blue medical tent — albeit on a brutal body slam from the passer — before the end of the first half.

“We just never really settled in,” Herbert said. “I never found the rhythm or the comfort. It starts with the running game, and we couldn’t do that today. It’s on me to do a better job of getting those completions, finding easy routes to extend plays and converting third downs, which we did a poor job of today as well. But yeah, we just weren’t good today.”

Herbert was checked for a concussion in the second quarter and cleared to return. With 11 minutes left and the Jaguars up 29, he and several other starters were removed from the game.

“We got beat in every way possible,” Harbaugh said.

Chargers coach Jim Harbaugh watches from the sidelines during a 35-6 loss to the Jaguars on Sunday.

(Doug Murray/Associated Press)

The loss matched the worst of his NFL career, a 29-point loss to Seattle in 2012, when Harbaugh was coaching the San Francisco 49ers.

Part of that was due to all the offensive line woes coming home. Over the past few weeks, the Chargers have managed to mask this by establishing a ground attack, and with Herbert quickly getting the ball out of his hands. The Chargers have had more than a dozen different line configurations this season.

There was a glimmer of hope for them when, just before the trade deadline, they acquired lineman Trevor Penning from the New Orleans Saints. But Penning made his debut at left tackle Sunday and won’t put that game on his resume. Nor any of his new teammates.

“It’s not the easiest thing,” Chargers guard Zion Johnson said of the weekly — and sometimes quarterly — reconfigurations. “But I think we have guys in this room who are up for the challenge. We need to take a good look at the tape, see where we can improve technically and where we can raise the level of execution.”

Chargers receiver Ladd McConkey is tackled by Jaguars safety Andrew Wingard in the first half Sunday.

(Mike Carlson/Getty Images)

Jacksonville was the crime scene where three years ago the Chargers blew a 27-point lead in a first-round playoff loss to the Jaguars.

James, who was a member of that team, said it could have been a little more salt in the wound on Sunday, but: “I hate losing, period. »

There’s time to do that now, as the Chargers have a bye week before resuming with a home game on Nov. 30 against the Raiders.

From the players’ perspective, the bye week is both a benefit and a burden.

“It’s never easy to have a bye week after a loss,” Johnson said. “You don’t get to take that bitter taste out of your mouth. But it at least gives us a chance to watch the tape, look at the last few weeks and the season as a whole, and see where we are and where we can improve as an offense and as a football team.”

The 29-point loss was the worst for the Chargers since a 63-21 loss to the Raiders on Dec. 14, 2023.

On Sunday, the Jaguars ran for 192 yards – the Chargers had 42 – and won the total yards, 345-135.

And that was a week after the Chargers defense throttled Pittsburgh, with the Steelers going 0 for 9 on third down until garbage time.

This defense was nowhere to be seen at EverBank Stadium.

“You want to get off the field because they’re on their four-minute attack,” James said. “Once they get up three possessions, you know they’re just trying to run the clock. We can’t allow people to play like that.”

Chargers running back Kimani Vidal, promoted from the practice squad earlier this season after the team’s top two running backs were injured, spent much of the first half on the sideline with a leg injury. The Chargers had promoted two other running backs from the practice squad to play behind him.

Jaguars running back Travis Etienne Jr. scores a touchdown in the fourth quarter against the Chargers on Sunday.

(Mike Carlson/Getty Images)

“We just didn’t do anything well offensively,” Harbaugh said. “We didn’t handle the ball well. We didn’t protect. We didn’t get open. And defensively, the same: we didn’t stop the run, we lost coverage. Go through every phase – we got beat in every way.

“We weren’t as physical as we should have been. We’ll review that now and figure out what we’re going to do about it.”

Now is the time to look in the mirror.

The truth hurts. For the Chargers, it hurts even more.