Chargers treating AFC West showdown with Raiders like season-opener

The Chargers view Week 13 vs. Raiders as a chance to restart the season.

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For the Los Angeles Chargers, the Week 13 encounter with the Las Vegas Raiders is like a season-opener in more ways than one.  

The Chargers and Jim Harbaugh face that sort of description coming out of a Week 12 bye. They desperately needed the reset, too, after dropping the shocker of a 35-6 loss to the Jacksonville Jaguars before the break.

But the allegations of Week 13 being something of a season-opener for the Chargers go beyond that, too. 

Those Pete Carroll-coached Raiders are a team undergoing immense change on short notice. They just fired offensive coordinator Chip Kelly, promoting quarterbacks coach Greg Olson into the vacant spot. 

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Harbaugh has made it clear that the element of the unknown suddenly creates a unique sort of challenge that doesn't usually come up in December. 

"You get ready for Geno. Get ready for Ashton Jeanty, Brock Bowers, their playmakers," Harbaugh said, according to Eric Smith of Chargers.com. "The scheme? It's more probably like a training camp approach to it, a [season] opener approach to it, to where we've got to play our defense and have the adjustments. It's more of an opener-type of mentality."

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The Raiders certainly hope that Geno Smith can turn it around under a new coordinator, considering he’s thrown 13 scores and picks this season. Ashton Jeanty, the star rookie running back, has only managed 604 yards and four scores on a 3.6 average. 

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Meanwhile, the Chargers simply hope that lining up and playing their usual game gets the job done. It didn’t against the Jaguars before the break, but the excuses about a long season with lots of flight, odd East Coast kickoff times and injuries go out the window now. 

After all, Week 13 is something like a season-opener again, right?

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