EL SEGUNDO — NFL teams don’t just wake up and choose violence.
They practice it. Train for it. Game-plan their attack.
Look at the way coach Jim Harbaugh has been plotting since he joined the Chargers in February 2024, when he stepped up to the podium to say, basically, Hey, I’m Jim, good to meet you, I’m going to be attacking everything with an enthusiasm unknown to mankind.
Also: “We’re going to respect all of our opponents. We’re going to earn their respect and we’re going to earn our winning as a tough team, a resilient team, a relentless team, a physical team. Don’t let the Powder Blues fool ya’ …
“We’re going to aspire to be a team that Vince Lombardi could be proud of,” he added. “Blocking, tackling, toughness, playing smart, playing fast, playing physical.”
Thirteen times in that introductory presser, Harbaugh mentioned physicality or toughness or attacking. Good ol’ Harbaughisms, but still: Easier said than done.
Anyone can tell you they want to play the tough guy, but it’s tougher to actually inhabit that role.
Well, after the Chargers’ 16-13 victory Sunday in frigid Kansas City, the Chiefs can confirm: The tough-guy thing isn’t an act, it’s who the Chargers are.
Because it took mettle to fly from 70-degree L.A. to play in temps in the teens, and to be the team beating – and beating up on – the host Chiefs so thoroughly their fans cried foul.
A compliment, those complaints on social media about the “dirty” Chargers hitting too hard – hits that, by the way, were all ruled compliant with football rules beside one. And the tackle that led to safety Tony Jefferson’s ejection? Debated, because Chiefs receiver Tyquan Thornton dropped his head into the hit.
But let’s pause real quick for complication identification: All of us tuned in to watch these gladiators of the gridiron go at it, we’re on this tightrope together. Love the car crashes but hate that anyone – Thornton (concussion protocols), Patrick Mahomes (ACL), etc. – gets hurt.
As if that circle squares, as if bone-crushing hits wouldn’t result in bone-crunching outcomes.
As if it’s not what players live for, too, Chargers linebacker Odafe Oweh explaining the feeling to me like this: “It’s crazy, just taking the life out of a man. It’s invigorating, that’s all I can say; it’s invigorating.”
As if it’s not positively a sign of a healthy football team when a coach like Harbaugh can rave that defensive lineman-turned-fullback Scott Matlock throws blocks so hard “that some of those hits, fillings are rattling!”
It’s football, it’s “physicality” is a feature, as Harbaugh reminded us in his praise of the 6-foot-4, 296-pound Matlock: “You have a fullback that is 300 pounds, that can also catch passes in the flat, and one time he hit a guy and knocked the chin strap off! That is a something that can really set the tone for an offense, for a physical, physical offense.” Ba-boop, ba-boop – bam!
It’s football, “a very physical sport to begin with,” echoed Justin Herbert, a tough guy if ever there were.
Quarterbacking with a broken hand behind a banged-up rotation of offensive linemen, Herbert went into Sunday’s game having faced the most total pressures (224) and quick pressures (94) in the NFL this season and having taken the most hits (106) and the third-most sacks (45). And who has nonetheless won three consecutive games.
The Chargers (10-4) next face the Dallas Cowboys (6-7-1) on Sunday, on the cusp of earning a second consecutive playoff berth in Harbaugh’s second season with a team whose has earned the hard-charging, no-chill reputation he promised.
For that, he says a game ball goes to the team’s strength and conditioning staff, all the folks who’ve helped the Chargers build the stamina required to be able to fight for 10 rounds or four quarters. Or overtime, like in the Chargers’ 22-19 win over the Philadelphia Eagles on Dec. 8.
Oweh said it’s the one-battle-after-another nature of the Chargers’ practices, their rep-by-rep determination to dominate one another that’s sharpened players’ minds and bodies: “So, like, you finish a rep and a guy’s hand is still on you, or trying to block you and still driving you after the whistle is done? That’s not a winning rep.
“It’s always finishing dominant in the rep, like you won your individual rep,” said Oweh, a product of of the plenty-physical Penn State and Baltimore Ravens programs. “If we’re all doing that, it makes for a physical team … and then it carries into your technique, and then it goes on the field.”
That’s what Harbaugh was talking about.
“A slugfest, four quarters – all four quarters – very physical, both sides, both teams,” said Harbaugh, talking Wednesday about the wins against the Chiefs and Eagles. “Four quarters, slugfest, and then into overtime, same thing. Just the conditioning of the team, I feel great about it. I feel like our guys are playing those fourth quarters, playing those overtimes just like they’re playing in third quarter and second quarter, and the first quarter.
“I think the great John Wooden would be proud of our team.”
Lombardi, Wooden, I think Harbaugh should be, too.
