Jim Harbaugh’s Chargers crowned pretenders after blowout loss

The Los Angeles Chargers found themselves on the wrong end of an embarrassing blowout in Week 15, going down 40-17 at the hands of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

There, Justin Herbert’s offense couldn’t get anything going, especially in the second half. Even worse, a defense that has been stout all year coughed up four passing touchdowns to Baker Mayfield and 222 rushing yards on the ground. The Chargers were ultimately outgained by 300 total yards and only had the ball for just over 23 minutes of possession.

To make matters all the worse, Jim Harbaugh and the Chargers have now lost two games in a row to fall to 8-6, which has only upped the noise about the team being “pretenders” this season.

While Chargers fans understood this was a rebuilding year, the overwhelming postgame narrative was one of the team being exposed in a bad way.

Yeah Chargers not beating the pretender allegations
— Alex Bustos (@Aleex_bustos17) December 15, 2024

Jim Harbaugh’s defense has been embarrassing last two weeks.

Chargers are so overrated. This league is filled with a bunch of pretenders.
— Lawrence Kreymer (@kreyme8) December 15, 2024

Jesse Minter and @chargers defense sucks. They are pretenders playing against a bunch of bad offenses. Good thing they still have the Pats and Raiders on the schedule. But Minters defense isn’t champion caliber
— BoltzandFood (@BoltzandF) December 15, 2024

in 2021 chargers were 8-5 and missed the playoffs by losing to the raiders in week 18

we play the raiders week 18 pic.twitter.com/FsZwpxPOyc
— ‏ً (@HerbertToLadd) December 16, 2024

We don’t have the weapons to overcome a bad play caller and we don’t have the play caller to overcome a lack of weapons…
— ChargersMemes (@ChargersMemes) December 16, 2024

Chargers getting blown out. Not even competitive. Didn’t see that coming. Baker and the boys need to be taken seriously.
— Colin Cowherd (@colincowherd) December 16, 2024

“Little surprised with the chargers’ lack of run game”

Why? 😭 our RB1 has been out for weeks and our IOL is made out of wet toilet paper literally nothing about this should be surprising
— jules 🫵🏼 (@nfljules) December 15, 2024

I feel like I've watched this exact same Chargers game all year long. Anytime this team takes a step up in class, they hang tough in the first half and completely fold in the 2nd half.
— Raheem Palmer (@iamrahstradamus) December 15, 2024

Truth is this: Chargers aren't serious until they can find a way to play two good halves of football back to back.

It's offense. It's coaching. It's game management. It's poor defensive execution now too.

Figure out how to beat an over .500 team in 3 days. Or else.
— Alex Insdorf (@alexinsdorf99) December 16, 2024

#Chargers second half offense

- 3 plays, punt
- 5 plays, punt
- 2 plays, interception
- 8 plays, turnover on downs
- 4 plays, turnover on downs
- 1 play, lost fumble
— Michael Peterson (@ZoneTracks) December 16, 2024

Put the wraps on Herbert. Come back in 2025. This team is done this year and is just hurting their draft pick position at this point.
— Powder Blue Blood (@pwdrblueblood) December 16, 2024

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