The Chargers sank deeper into the NFL basement Sunday and inched ever closer to the No. 1 pick in the 2027 draft.
They lost at home to the Houston Texans, 44-22, absorbing their most lopsided loss before a half-filled SoFi Stadium, where the get-in ticket prices last week dipped below $15 on the secondary market.
Not only are the Chargers the league’s only winless team at 0-8, but they also have lost 11 in a row dating to last season. No team has finished 0-17, but the Chargers could wind up there.
The Chargers gave up the most points Sunday since their 63-21 loss to Las Vegas on Dec. 14, 2023, which led to the immediate firing of the team’s coach and general manager at the time.
It was another rough Sunday for Chargers quarterback Justin Herbert, who was sacked eight times and completed 13 of 23 passes for 193 yards with a touchdown and an interception.
With 12:42 remaining in the fourth quarter, the Chargers ended a touchdown drought that felt interminable. Herbert hit Quentin Johnston on a slant near midfield, and the lanky receiver raced 58 yards for the score.
It was the first time since Oct. 11 that the Chargers crossed the goal line, doing so previously on a 42-yard run by Kimani Vidal against Denver. In the interim, they went 37 possessions without a touchdown.
That in large part is a withering indictment of new offensive coordinator Mike McDaniel, whose scheme has been a round-peg, square-hole fiasco, with his players unable to establish any semblance of a rhythm. For Sunday’s game, McDaniel moved from the field to the coaching booth above it in hopes of getting a better vantage for his play-calling.
McDaniel, former coach of the Miami Dolphins, really saw his offense clicking in 2023, when the Dolphins finished first in yards and second in scoring.
By comparison, these Chargers came into Sunday ranked last in points and 28th in yards.
The game already decided, Herbert, who was nursing an apparent injury to his left hand, was replaced midway through the fourth quarter by backup D.J. Uiagalelei.
The Texans, meanwhile, who got off to an 0-4 start, have won three of their last four. Texans quarterback C.J. Stroud completed 21 of 35 passes for 384 yards and tied his career high with five touchdown passes.
With eight games to go for the Chargers, there are reasonable chances for a victory remaining. Next up, a Monday night game at Baltimore against a shorthanded Ravens team that has lost four in a row.
The Texans (3-5) have been tormentors of the Chargers in recent years, beating them in four of the last five meetings. That includes a lopsided win in the first round of the 2024 playoffs and a four-point win at SoFi last season. Houston forced a combined five turnovers in those two games, and two more Sunday.
The Chargers encountered a setback even before kickoff. Ladd McConkey, their No. 1 receiver, suffered back spasms during warmups and was done for the day.
At halftime, the franchise inducted former players Anthony Miller and John Carney into the Chargers Hall of Fame. The timing for Carney was coincidental. In 2000, after the team got off to an 0-11 start, he kicked a 52-yard field goal to beat Kansas City, 17-16, and thwart conjecture that the Chargers would become the first NFL team to finish 0-16.
Recalling that fateful kick, Carney said: “If you take a snapshot of the locker room after that game, and the celebration and the grown men that were crying and smoking cigars, and put it next to the locker room after we won the AFC championship game against the Steelers — same, same, same.”
Since then, two clubs have worn that 0-16 albatross — the 2008 Detroit Lions and 2017 Cleveland Browns — but the regular season is now 17 games. So these Chargers would make history should they lose their final eight games.
Recalled Carney: “That was a rough season, similar to what they’re going through right now. We were scratching and clawing for a W, and it took a long time for it to happen.”
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