Los Angeles Chargers: Team poised for big run following 1-2 start

Even after a crushing loss to the Rams in Week 3, the Los Angeles Chargers are poised for a big run over their next eight games.

The Los Angeles Chargers are 1-2 after three weeks of the 2018 season, sitting at third place in their division and having just lost the Battle for L.A. after a dominant performance by the Rams. Time to buy in?

It might just be. After all, you could argue that no team has had a tougher start to the season than the Chargers. What’s more, the burden is about to lessen in that regard.

Strictly regarding schedule, the Chargers will have one of the easiest string of games ahead of them:

Week 4: San Francisco 49ers at home
Week 5: Oakland Raiders at home
Week 6: At the Cleveland Browns
Week 7: Tennessee Titans at home
Week 8: BYE
Week 9: At Seattle Seahawks
Week 10: At Oakland Raiders
Week 11: Denver Broncos at home
Week 12: Arizona Cardinals at home
Week 13: At Pittsburgh Steelers

The Chargers may not face a playoff team until the Steelers (currently 0-1-1) on the road. But between Weeks 4-12, who could stop them?

Jimmy Garoppolo, the next quarterback on the schedule, reportedly tore his ACL against the Kansas City Chiefs. The 49ers have no offensive line, no starting running back and now no quarterback. The Chargers’ defense should be able to feast in that matchup.

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The Raiders flat out stink right now, and can’t seem to buy a fourth quarter win. A division rival is always tougher than their record suggests, but the Silver and Black lack an attack, on both offense and defense. Their team, the oldest one in the league, cannot hold on to win games late. And after getting worse on defense, I’m not sure the Raiders can handle a fully-healthy Chargers offense.

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Here’s the surprise of the year: the Cleveland Browns might be the toughest game on this schedule. Baker Mayfield played well against a sad Jets defense, and will be a huge X-factor in Week 6. How will the Chargers pull this one off? Simple: they inject Joey Bosa, Forrest Lamp and a surprisingly much-missed Corey Liuget into the lineup.

The Titans are a team that wins ugly, but I can’t see them stopping a Chargers team with tons of offense. They’ve only played the Dolphins, Texans and Jaguars, three teams with a quarterback that is not playing at the level of Philip Rivers. Beating the Eagles in Week 4, however, could change things.

Following a bye, the Bolts head to Seattle, which will be the most hostile environment they’ll play at during this stretch. Then it’s at Raiders, home against a Broncos team they shut out last season, and the currently 0-3 disaster that is the Cardinals.

Over the next eight weeks before the Steelers, it wouldn’t shock me if the Chargers went on their yearly run over a string of games and won six or seven. That’s a solid 7-4 or 8-3 record heading into Pittsburgh, who is reportedly trying to trade Le’Veon Bell.

The defense is currently a concern, and the lack of a pass rush is actually a bit astonishing. Following a 2017 season in which the defense only allowed just one team to score more than 30 points, they’ve allowed two such instances in three games.

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However, the team gets Liuget and world-breaker Bosa back, which could launch the defense into elite potential once more. No. 99 has been sorely missed the first three weeks, and his triumphant return will catalyze an anemic pass rush.

The Chargers won the game they were supposed to, and lost the two games they should have. Now, the regrouping team gets to find their groove against an eight game stretch of teams with a combined 7-16-1 record, split in the middle by a timely Week 8 bye. Buy low on the Chargers, because they’re about to a win a lot more games.

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