The Morning-After Thunder: Chargers, Harbaugh Make Dumb Mistakes, Season Slips Away

The Chargers took on the Broncos with a makeshift offensive line and no wide receivers. See how they lost the game and now face an avalanche of unknowns.

Oct 11, 2026; Inglewood, California, USA; Los Angeles Chargers head coach Jim Harbaugh throws a challenge flag against the Denver Broncos during the first half at SoFi Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Gary A. Vasquez-Imagn Images | IMAGN IMAGES via Reuters Connect

The Los Angeles Chargers welcomed the Denver Broncos to SoFi Stadium in Week 5 crushed by injuries. Los Angeles started four rookie offensive linemen and were down nearly every wide receiver on the roster. Despite the terrible circumstances, the Chargers had a chance to win this game and boneheaded mishaps handed the Broncos the keys to victory.

At 0-5, the Chargers season is over. Mathematically they have not been eliminated yet but the writing is on the wall. The Chargers must now face tough questions and the demons that haunt organization. How did the team, with Super Bowl aspirations essentially fall off a cliff and forget how to play football on the way down.

The front office will be heavily criticized for how the team has performed and rightfully so. The franchise faces organizational questions that must be answered moving forward.

What went wrong against Denver?

The game actually went almost exactly as I expected and key matchups proved to be just that. The Chargers defense owned the line of scrimmage for the majority of the game. The Chargers young and inexperienced offensive line attacked the Broncos smaller edge rushers in the run game and opened up the play-action game.

The biggest mistakes were made by Jim Harbaugh and Justin Herbert. Harbaugh made a complete error in judgement when using his first challenge to challenge the spot of a Bo Nix quarterback sneak. The odds of that being overturned are minimal and is was a waste of a timeout and challenge.

That wasted challenge came back to haunt the Chargers as they lost their second challenge later and faced a situation late in the game where that challenge would have helped them win. With just over ten minutes remaining and the Chargers up 17-10, Justin Herbert scrambled for what appeared to be a critical first down. The referees had an awful time with spotting the ball in this game and did not give Herbert the spot. If the Chargers could have challenged it, they would have won.

Harbaugh then made the fatal mistake. He irrationally sent out the Chargers offense to try to secure the first down via quarterback sneak and failed. To that point, the Broncos offense had only managed to score three points on their own, they scored a touchdown only on a short field prior to that. Instead of punting the ball and letting the defense continue on the warpath, Justin Herbert was stuffed and pushed back.

The field position and momentum that immediately went to the Broncos was a killer. Justin Hebert, sensing the lack of offense with nearly no receivers left, became reckless in this game as well and after that momentum swing, he started pressing and trying to do too much leading to turnovers. Herbert's fumbles and interception were squarely on him but so was the entire offense.

What now?

The Spanos family and Chargers ownership must be scratching their heads with how this season has gone. The investment in facilities, coaching staff and the big play to bring in Mike McDaniel were never considered risky, they were all considered home run moves.

Are coaching changes on deck? Mike McDaniel called a relatively good game and had a good game plan to attack Denver, especially with the lack of available players. Jim Harbaugh clearly is lost and does not understand how the team is here. Joe Hortiz has been a good drafting general manager but a catastrophic failure on the free agent market and with the offensive line.

My attention as it will be for many Chargers fans will pivot to 2027 draft preparation. But will the Chargers make a move with any of the coaches or the front office. Much of the data and analytics staff left the Chargers shortly after Jim Harbaugh's arrival, he could have used some extra advanced data against the Broncos and at the very least the organization may have to look to reinforce the department.