With the 2024 NFL schedules set to be released on Wednesday, it's easy to start considering the best schedule for the Chargers, who could benefit from a few parts being better than the cards they were dealt last year.
They'll have a lot to prove under new head coach Jim Harbaugh, who returns to the league for the first time in 2015 after putting together a successful career at the University of Michigan.
It will inevitably bring a lot more focus on what and how the Chargers are doing, and it'll go a lot more smoothly if their schedule features a few factors working in their favor.
Best-case schedule scenarios that could propel the Chargers in 2024
1. Starting the season against one of the worst teams of 2023
Besides having to play the reigning Super Bowl Champions twice, the Chargers appear to have an easier opponent lineup for the 2024 season.
Outside of their division, playing the last-place-ranked Patriots and Titans, plus the questionable NFC South, makes for a more attainable winning record than in years past, and starting the season with one of those teams would be ideal.
Getting a solid win under their belt to kick off the new season under their new head coach would instantly boost morale, even more so if they could play a few of those teams in a row. Starting the first month of the season, racking up the wins doesn't seem too shabby.
2. Have a midseason bye week
When the 2023 schedule was released, and the Chargers were set to have a Week 5 bye week, it set a negative tone for how the season would go. Concerns were already brewing due to Brandon Staley's questionable coaching, so hearing more bad news was not the best way to start a new season.
Fortunately, they've had a massive upgrade in the head coach department with the hiring of Jim Harbaugh, which will inevitably make a tremendous impact. But there's not a whole lot of silver lining to the earliest bye week a team can have.
Harbaugh can put them in a better position to win in the 13 remaining games of the year, something Staley didn't do. But that's a long stretch of games without a break, especially when the season only becomes more difficult as the weeks go on.
So the perfect bye week would be midseason, like Week 8 to Week 10, playing nearly equally halves of the year before and after the break.
3. Having back-to-back home games
One of the worst parts of the 2023 season for the Chargers, among the long list of negatives, was the NFL not scheduling them to have back-to-back home games all year. It made for a lot of travel every week, which can take a toll on the players and staff.
It's even worse when those trips are cross country every other week, which could be their fate this season, with five of their nine away games being on the east coast.
Of course, the hope is that the league will be easier on them this season, even if there isn't much optimism of that actually happening, and that they'll benefit from a more lax travel schedule.
It could be one of the defining factors for the Chargers to have an improved season, which is all anyone wants, right?