Swanson: Chargers waste chance to seize L.A. spotlight from Rams after a debacle of an opener

It’s just one game. And it’s a long season.

Maybe a loooong season, if you’re a Chargers fan.

Sunday’s season-opening debacle — a sloppy, uninspired and uninspiring 26-14 loss to the Arizona Cardinals at SoFi Stadium — was a first, giant step back for these Chargers.

You can’t call Game 1 of any season a must-win. But you can pan back and recognize that sometimes Game 1 is a really, really should-win affair.

Not only because the Cardinals represented as close to a gimme as the Chargers are going to get on their precarious schedule.

The road ahead of them is considered the seventh toughest in the NFL, with a gauntlet starting in Week 3 against the Buffalo Bills, followed by the Super Bowl champion Seattle Seahawks, Denver Broncos, Kansas City Chiefs and then the Rams, the preseason Super Bowl favorites.

But the Chargers also missed a prime opportunity to fill a hole in the L.A. football plot, rare as those are.

There was an opening Sunday, a bleak day for those rival Rams, with news of defensive end Myles Garrett set to undergo surgery on his left knee and be placed on injured reserve, which will force him out of at least the next four games.

The development came on the heels of the Rams’ disappointing 27-7 season-opening loss to the San Francisco 49ers in Australia. And that was compounded by the Rams’ travel plans being widely panned after their sluggish defeat.

While the Rams are going through it, the Chargers had an opportunity to present a positive foil when Los Angeles’ football fans got to Monday morning quarterbacking.

Hey, dude, did you hear about Myles Garrett?

I know! What a bummer!

And I still can’t believe they decided to fly to Australia and play fewer than 30 hours later.

Right? But, man, did you see what the Chargers did to the Cardinals?

That’s how it should have gone.

Instead, folks who follow the sport around here are going to be asking the opposite: Did you see what the Cardinals did to the Chargers?

Yeah, the Cardinals — led by rookie head coach Mike LaFleur, the Rams’ former offensive coordinator — embarrassed the Bolts at home.

The team that moved up from San Diego 10 years ago promising to “Fight for L.A.” showed none of that against Arizona, a team that won only three games last season.

And that, as much as anything, should worry anyone who’s invested in this Chargers team. You wanted to see the will and want-to of a team that went 11-6 each of the past two seasons and could be destined, at last, for a push in the playoffs?

You hoped to see a group that’s learned something about seizing a moment?

You didn’t see it. You saw an unfocused and unbothered bunch who, afterward, seemed mainly perplexed by their lack of execution.

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Sam Farmer breaks down what went wrong for the Chargers in their 26-14 season-opening loss to the Arizona Cardinals at SoFi Stadium.

By the fact that they were outgained 393 to 268 in total yardage. By their seven ill-timed penalties for 64 yards.

By Jacoby Brissett outdueling Justin Herbert, who completed just 17 of 27 passes for 209 yards, with a touchdown and an interception, one of the Chargers’ two turnovers — compared with none from the Cardinals.

By the fact that Herbert — despite a revamped offensive line — was sacked three times, including losing 13 yards on a pivotal fourth-down play in the second quarter, when the Chargers went for it from the three.

It was a substantial upset as far as openers go because the Chargers were favored to win by 9½ points, more than any other team Sunday.

It was also coach Jim Harbaugh’s first loss in seven NFL season openers, which you wouldn’t have guessed watching his woefully unprepared team struggle in every facet.

And it won’t be lost on anyone how uncoordinated the Chargers’ operation seemed behind its new coordinators.

Offensive coordinator Mike McDaniel is supposed to unlock new levels for Herbert. But Herbert had only 15 pass attempts entering the third quarter — as few as in any game in his previous six NFL seasons.

And under new defensive coordinator Chris O’Leary — despite working with most of the same personnel Jesse Minter had in his two successful seasons in L.A. — the Chargers had trouble containing one of the NFL’s least imposing offenses.

“It was,” safety Derwin James Jr. said, “a complete team loss.”

“It was just execution,” Herbert said. “We didn’t execute on third down and we had too many turnovers … Everything is just on us to go out and execute the game plan … It’s on us to be able to execute the protection plan, get the ball out, and do everything that we need to do.”

Said Harbaugh: “Have to get things to get better, for sure. You know, better job coaching, better job practicing, better job executing. All those things need to be elevated.”

About the only thing achieved by the Chargers falling so flat Sunday? It might have lifted the Rams’ spirits a modicum. They have their problems, but at least they’re not the Chargers; at least they didn’t just get completely out-executed by the Arizona Cardinals.

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