There's only so many ways you can say it. The Los Angeles Chargers' Week 1 loss to the Arizona Cardinals is not only an undesirable outcome—it's completely unacceptable.
Things get weird in Week 1, and it's obviously not time to write this team off yet. But with the sort of schedule they're set to face, Los Angeles desperately needed to come away from their Week 1 and 2 matchups with a pair of clean wins. Starting in Week 3, they're going to need to face a gauntlet of opposing defenses and even one or two of the league's best offensive attacks.
Since the schedule came out, it's seemed like Los Angeles would be in excellent position for a playoff push if they exited Week 10 with a 6-3 record. That required, on the surface, going 2-0 against the Cardinals and Las Vegas Raiders and finishing 4-3 against their tougher slate of opponents. That record is still a possibility, but their loss to Arizona forces us to reconsider our projections of their schedule.
Let's assume Los Angeles needs to finish with 10 wins if they're going to have a shot at a Wild Card berth. There's still certainly a chance for them to accomplish that, so let's take a look at how things could unfold over the rest of the season.
The Chargers' path to the playoffs is still intact after a disastrous Week 1 loss
Let's start by banking a win against the Raiders. That might be foolhardy given what we just saw on the field against Arizona, but Kirk Cousins and the Las Vegas offense had enough inconsistencies in their matchup with Miami Dolphins to feel confident in that result.
That leaves Los Angeles entering their Week 3 matchup with the Buffalo Bills with a 1-1 record. From there, they'll play the Seattle Seahawks, Denver Broncos, Kansas City Chiefs, Los Angeles Rams, Houston Texans, and Baltimore Ravens, with a bye saddled in the middle in Week 7. Here's a projection of how that gauntlet could reasonably unfold.
Week 3 — @ Buffalo Bills — L (21-34)
Week 4 — @ Seattle Seahawks — W (23-20)
Week 5 — vs. Denver Broncos — W (27-14)
Week 6 — @ Kansas City Chiefs — W (31-17)
Week 7 — Bye
Week 8 — @ Los Angeles Rams — L (28-35)
Week 9 — vs. Houston Texans — L (17-28)
Week 10 — @ Baltimore Ravens — W (38-28)
Chargers Record: 5-4
The Bills just put up the most impressive offensive performance of Week 1 (outside of the Chicago Bears' rout of the Carolina Panthers), and if this defense doesn't have things figured out by then, that might as well be a scheduled loss. There's a chance, though, that Sam Darnold misses the Seahawks matchup, and neither the Broncos nor the Chiefs offense looked particularly inspiring when you take the whole sample of their Monday Night Football matchup in Week 1.
The Rams struggled heavily during their international matchup with the San Francisco 49ers, but we can likely expect them to get things sorted out by Week 8. The must-win games here, then, are the two divisional matchups against Denver and Kansas City along with the road matchup against Baltimore and one of their three matchups against Seattle, Houston, and Buffalo. A 5-4 record feels reasonable at this juncture, even if it's not the mark we set before the season began.
Things lighten up from there, but Los Angeles is going to need to escape some potential trap games if they want to stay solid on the back half of the schedule. Here's what Weeks 11 through 18 could realistically look like.
Week 11 — vs. New York Jets — W (36-14)
Week 12 — vs. New England Patriots — W (21-16)
Week 13 — @ Tampa Bay Buccaneers — W (31-13)
Week 14 — @ Las Vegas Raiders — W (23-17)
Week 15 — vs. San Francisco 49ers — L (21-27)
Week 16 — @ Miami Dolphins — W (43-12)
Week 17 — vs. Kansas City Chiefs — L (25-31)
Week 18 — @ Denver Broncos — W (18-14)
Chargers Record: 11-6
Of course, the scores here are all rough predictions. But the Chargers would need to come away from this slate with wins against the Jets, Patriots, Buccaneers, Raiders, Dolphins, and one of the Chiefs or Broncos to finish with an 11-win season. We can count the 49ers game as a potential loss given how solid that team looked in their season opener, and it's unreasonable to assume that Los Angeles will sweep both Kansas City and Denver this season. Teams like Miami, New York, and Tampa Bay should present relatively easy wins if Los Angeles finds their footing in the early-season slate.
But here's the thing. Even if they can make the playoffs with 10 wins instead of 11, this loss to the Cardinals gives them very little breathing room. If they were to drop, say, one of their two early divisional matchups plus the game to New England, they'd suddenly be left needing to finish the season on a five-game winning streak simply to hit that threshold.
If their early-season gauntlet goes any worse than that—well, you can be the judge there.
The point is that there's still certainly a path for Los Angeles to carve out a playoff berth, and it's not time to hit panic button yet. But the Cardinals game was one they needed to have in the bag if they wanted to lighten the burden that the rest of this slate presents.
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