3 poor decisions Jim Harbaugh made that fueled the Chargers' loss to the Chiefs

For the 11th season in a row, the Kansas City Chiefs went into the LA Chargers' home building and handed the Bolts a loss. Like most of those losses in the past, Sunday's loss was painful as the Chargers had every chance to upset the defending Super Bowl Champions.

The Bolts could not have asked for a better start with an early 10-0 lead over the Chiefs in the first quarter. Los Angeles wouldn't end up scoring in the game again, somehow losing while only allowing the Chiefs to score 17 points.

There is a lot of blame to go around for the Chargers' loss to the Chiefs. Most of that blame is deservingly on the team's health. However, for the first time in his short tenure with the Bolts, head coach Jim Harbaugh was not perfect.

3 mistakes Jim Harbaugh made that led to the Chargers' loss:

1. Starting Sam Mustipher at right guard

It is hard to fathom that Sam Mustipher was the best option for the Chargers to start at right guard on Sunday. Mustipher turned in one of the worst performances in recent Chargers history, reminiscent of when Senio Kelemete was absolutely horrible in a spot start in 2021.

It would be one thing if Mustipher was on the active roster or was a recent draft pick the Chargers wanted to throw into the fire. That was not the case at all. Mustipher was a practice squad elevation who somehow beat out Jordan McFadden and Brenden Jaimes to start.

If Mustipher was really the best option, and he played that poorly, then Chargers fans should be concerned about where Jaimes and McFadden are in their development.

2. The questionable fourth-down decision in the fourth quarter

Harbaugh went for his first fourth-down attempt as Chargers head coach early in the fourth quarter. The Chargers were faced with fourth and one from the Kansas City three-yard-line in a 10-10 game. Instead of taking the three points, Harbaugh wanted seven.

To be fair, to beat the Chiefs the Chargers would have needed to score a touchdown there anyway. As good as the defense was playing, history proves that you do not beat the Chiefs by kicking field goals late in games. The end result would have been the same.

The issue with this decision wasn't the decision to go for it, it was trusting offensive coordinator Greg Roman to call whatever it was he called on fourth down. The play was essentially dead as soon as the ball was snapped as nobody was open and Herbert, who is banged up remember, could not move.

Nine times out of 10 the right play is to put the ball in the franchise quarterback's hands and let him go to work. This was a situation where the Chargers should have stayed simple and pounded the rock with J.K. Dobbins, or at the very least, call a QB sneak with the team's six-foot-six quarterback.

3. Poor game management

This goes hand-in-hand with the fourth-down attempt. Harbaugh called a timeout prior to the fourth-down attempt as the communication simply was not good enough. That is what made the failed conversion so bad: the fact that is also burned a timeout.

This left the Chargers with only one timeout in the game because Harbaugh challenged a marginal catch play earlier in the second half. It was an impactful play as it was a first-down conversion on third down but even if the Chiefs didn't convert, they likely would have attempted the field goal anyway (which is what they got on that drive).

As a result, the Chargers had just one timeout when punting the ball back to the Chiefs with just over three minutes to play. That, obviously, is a losing recipe.