The Los Angeles Chargers were supposed to, at the very least, be a highly competitive team by this point in the season.
Sure, there was always going to be an adjustment period for this offense, and especially Justin Herbert, as it acclimated to Mike McDaniel's scheme. A slow start to the season was expected—although a pair of losses to the Arizona Cardinals and Las Vegas Raiders certainly wasn't. But even that would've been forgivable if Los Angeles had found its footing entering their gauntlet of matchups in Week 3 through 10.
But here we are entering Week 9, and the Chargers are still without any signs of true improvement on the offensive side of the ball, let alone a win. By virtually every metric, this has been the worst unit in the league to this point in the season. The Chargers are 32nd in total EPA/play, 29th in total passing yards, and 21st in rushing yards per attempt. It's a borderline unwatchable effort, and every fan who's had to sit through Los Angeles' first seven games is well aware of that fact.
Well, the league as a whole is about to become aware as well—the Chargers are slated to play three primetime games between now and Week 15, against the Baltimore Ravens, the New England Patriots, and the San Francisco 49ers. And while the NFL theoretically has the option to flex the latter two and replace them with more compelling matchups, it doesn't seem as though the circumstances are going to fall that way this season.
The Chargers have been embarrassed on a week-to-week basis, and unless there's some rapid improvement over the next two weeks, they're about to get hung out to dry on national television before the end of the campaign.
The NFL doesn't have many pathways to flex the Chargers out of their three primetime matchups in 2026
Now, there's certainly some hope for the Ravens matchup. The Baltimore defense, under new head coach Jesse Minter, has simply been middling, and they're coming off a pair of discouraging defensive performances against the Cincinnati Bengals and the Jacksonville Jaguars. To this point in the season (with an extra game in hand after their Thursday Night Football matchup), they're dead last in total passing yards allowed and 20th in rushing yards. We'll see where those numbers level out to when the rest of the league catches up to them this weekend, but needless to say, that's nowhere near the expected mark for a Jesse Minter defense.
Both Lamar Jackson and Tyler Huntley appear to be sidelined for the foreseeable future, moreover, and Baltimore was forced to make a move for Jacoby Brissett, who was recently demoted to QB3 with the Arizona Cardinals, in order to bring a starting-caliber quarterback onto the roster. The Chargers defense got diced up in Week 1 when it faced Brissett, but this is a much improved unit under Chris O'Leary. There's a real chance this matchup is competitive into the second half, if not a particularly entertaining one. The NFL cannot flex games on Monday Night Football prior to Week 12, so this one will stay intact in the primetime slate.
New England, for its part, has found its form since starting off the season in a relative slump, and Drake Maye is playing like a true MVP candidate again. The Patriots have lost each of their past two games to true playoff contenders (the Jaguars and Chicago Bears), but if Maye is anywhere near his top form, this Sunday Night Football matchup shouldn't be particularly close. But that Week 12 game will be held the weekend after Thanksgiving, meaning the NFL already has a bevy of standalone matchups to accommodate that week, many of which can't be moved because of their proximity to the holiday.
The Chargers' final primetime matchup against San Francisco, meanwhile, can't be moved because the Los Angeles Rams are also scheduled to play a home matchup that week. The Chargers will be stuck going against the best team in the NFL on Thursday Night Football.
Perhaps we'll see some improvement by then, but as of now, it feels as though the Chargers' embarrassment is about to extend, quite literally, onto a national scale.
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