Prediction columns are silly.
If you want to guarantee something won’t happen, go ahead and predict — as Bill Plaschke did — that the Rams are going to go undefeated.
See, what happened was that his crystal ball was misfiring. Kind of like Chargers quarterback Justin Herbert has this season, throwing an interception in every game so far.
Actually, it’s Herbert’s Chargers who are going to go 0-17.
After the Rams’ suspense-free 24-9 victory over the “visiting” Chargers on Sunday at SoFi Stadium, the Rams are 4-4. But the Bolts are 0-7 and barreling toward most unfortunate history.
NFL teams have gone winless before, but it hasn’t happened since the schedule grew to 17 games in 2021. Are the Chargers desperate enough to avoid being the first? It doesn’t feel like it.
They have 10 games left, of course. And what ESPN ranks as the 10th toughest remaining strength of schedule. They blew supposed layups in Weeks 1 and 2, losing to the Arizona Cardinals and Las Vegas Raiders; the 1-6 Miami Dolphins probably have their Dec. 27 game against the Chargers circled on their calendar as their winnable one. Still, each game, each week is “an opportunity,” as Chargers coach Jim Harbaugh said, to figure it out. Or even to trap an unsuspecting, wounded opponent?
But there’s also the fact that the Chargers are 0-10 since their last win on Dec. 21 in Dallas — even longer ago than the Chargers’ last touchdown, which was nine quarters and 27 possessions in the rearview mirror.
What’s 10 more losses if not on the table?
Just about everything should be on the table — though not trading Herbert, by all accounts — for this banged-up, head-scratching, flat tire of a football team.
The Chargers’ lost season is the opportunity for major renovations.
It would even be really silly for the Chargers not to give the market a good shake before the NFL’s Nov. 10 trade deadline.
No one wants to say goodbye to Chargers mainstay Khalil Mack that way, but the veteran defender should be worth a pretty pick to a contender. What about receiver Quentin Johnston? Running back Kimani Vidal?
But do not excuse Mike McDaniel. Let the beleaguered offensive coordinator keep calling games.
Why? Because history is on the line!
And so is the No. 1 draft pick that could land Ohio State’s sensational receiver, Jeremiah Smith.
The Detroit Lions went winless in 2008 and got Matthew Stafford — a Super Bowl winner and last season’s league MVP for the Rams — with the top pick in the next draft for their suffering.
But neither that season, nor the Cleveland Browns’ 0-16 2016, will go down as an abject disappointment on the level of this Chargers season.
Those teams weren’t supposed to be special. ESPN’s consensus was that the 2008 Lions would finish fourth in the division. And the Browns were coming off a 1-15 season (after which they drafted Myles Garrett No. 1 overall).
The Chargers came into this year with the eighth best odds to win the Super Bowl. They were fresh off consecutive 11-win seasons in Harbaugh’s first two seasons at the helm. And they were pairing Herbert and McDaniel. They were supposed to be a dynamic duo. Instead, the pairing has been a colossal dud.
Herbert’s two interceptions Sunday pushed his season total to an NFL-leading 10. In 2024, he threw only three.
“Turnovers are what’s stopping us [offensively], and that’s something that we have to clean up,” Herbert said after Sunday’s loss, in which he hit both Rams safety Quentin Lake and Rams cornerback Trent McDuffie in the chest with passes.
The first interception led to a Rams field goal, the second set up a Rams touchdown.
It was that kind of game in that kind of season.
Herbert’s Hail Mary before halftime came down in Ladd McConkey’s grasp a foot short of the goal line. It was the second time this season Herbert completed a pass of 50 or more yards and had the play end on the one-yard line — an NFL record, according to ESPN.
The Chargers also went into halftime with 129 more yards of total offense, nine more minutes of possession and prevented the Rams from achieving a first down on their first five drives for the first time in Sean McVay’s decade as coach.
But still the Chargers — they of little faith — trailed 10-9. Because the Rams closed the half by charging 66 yards to score a touchdown on a five-play, 1-minute, 36-second drive immediately after the Chargers had elected to kick a field goal rather than go for it on fourth and two.
They played like a team ready to accept another defeat and fell to 0-7 for the first time since 2000, when Harbaugh was their quarterback.
They finished 1-15 that season, the franchise’s worst. I wondered: Did that experience teach Harbaugh — who is just the fifth coach ever to win a college national title and also appear in a Super Bowl — anything?
“I mean, there’s no quit, there’s no surrender,” Harbaugh said. “It’s going to be an opportunity next week, get ourselves ready for that. It’s that motivation, it’s that dedication that, you know, there’s next week. There’s an opportunity, and … you got to keep working, you got to keep moving forward.”
Unless they can put in a reverse jinx, the only thing they’re moving toward is some ignominious history.
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