"Tom Krasovic: San Diego’s hate-watchers delight in winless Chargers’ spiral"
Life just keeps getting better for the San Diegans who delight in every Los Angeles Chargers defeat.
Winless L.A. scored no touchdowns Sunday for the second straight game, wasted its defense’s sharp near-half and lost to the Los Angeles Rams, 24-9, making it seven straight losses to open the 2026 season.
Giddiness overload is becoming a health risk for San Diego’s schadenfreude crowd.
The Spanos club began the season as a trendy Super Bowl threat among oddsmakers and NFL media rights holders due to its 11-6 mark the past two years under coach Jim Harbaugh and the January hire of Mike McDaniel, a creative offensive coordinator.
The team hasn’t come close to winning any of its seven games. Its offense makes L.A. traffic look like a fun time.
Though many San Diegans continue to support the franchise, the winless start has aroused weekly chuckles from Oceanside to Baja California.
The guffaws will only continue if the offense reprises its work of the first six games plus another stinko performance Sunday in its first game since Harbaugh, bowing his neck and jutting his square jaw, chose to retain McDaniel through the bye week.
Late in his San Diego days, team owner Dean Spanos said the franchise’s move into a spiffy NFL stadium would improve its competitiveness on the field.
The L.A. money — and perhaps the ultra-high standards set by the other sports teams in L.A. — seemed to further convince Spanos and president of football operations John Spanos into paying up for Harbaugh.
Harbaugh started fast, improving the franchise on a few key fronts.
But he bears first responsibility for the dysfunctional offense, which has sputtered for the better part of every game. The unit has undermined a fine defense that’s rewarded Harbaugh for naming Chris O’Leary as the coordinator.
The 62-year-old Harbaugh had established himself as a great head coach by winning big at the University of San Diego, Stanford, Michigan and with the San Francisco 49ers before becoming the first Chargers coach since Norv Turner in 2007-08 to lead consecutive teams to 10-plus wins.
Harbaugh helped to mold quarterbacks into stars at each stop. The former NFL quarterback’s hire of McDaniel stands as a big whiff, though.
While Justin Herbert, 28, isn’t blameless for his own plummet into someone who’s now unrecognizable in comparison to his bright, lengthy track record, the QB has paid a stiff price for Harbaugh’s hire of McDaniel.
L.A. is again fielding a bad offensive line and deficient pass-catching unit. Blame there goes on Harbaugh and general manager Joe Hortiz. But don’t get carried away. Herbert performed well in other years when L.A. failed him in personnel, and he shone much brighter under L.A.’s four coordinators who preceded McDaniel.
Herbert has never looked so uncomfortable as he has this season.
Worst of all, he’s throwing the ball to a defender in every game.
He did it again Sunday. Twice.
In giving McDaniel and players a chance to regroup the past two weeks, Harbaugh seemed to be betting that the return of his best receiver by far (Ladd McConkey) and his best tackle (Joe Alt) would contribute to a good performance against a Rams “D” lacking All-Pro edge Myle Garrett.
Here’s how the reinforced, bye-revived McDaniel offense began:
Three plays, punt. Three plays, punt. Two so-so plays, followed by Herbert throwing a bad third-and-5 pass that was picked off and returned 45 yards, leading to a 3-0 Rams lead.
McDaniel didn’t get the offense untracked from there. Herbert did, by making a play that led to a tying field goal.
Harbaugh, coaching scared with an 0-6 team, went for two field goals instead of going for it on fourth-and 2. Herbert, throwing late into the flat, would throw his 10th interception.
The game was played in the $5.5-billion Kroenke Dome, financed largely by megabillionaire Rams owner Stan Kroeneke after the NFL failed to wrangle satisfying public subsidies out of various municipalities.
The promise of rent-free tenancy in a state-of-the-art NFL stadium led to the Spanoses deciding to pull out of San Diego and head to the country’s second-largest market. Never mind that the L.A. newbies were uninvited, showing up in the big city like Cousin Eddie and family ringing the Griswolds’ doorbell in “Christmas Vacation.”
A decade in, the Spanoses’ L.A. venture was supposed to take flight.
It didn’t happen in any of the season’s first six games. And it didn’t happen Sunday. On the fake-grass field with the Rams logo on it, the Harbaugh-McDaniel-Herbert offense shorted out.
A loss next week to the Texans — 2-5 and coming off their bye — and L.A. would be 0-8 at the season’s near midpoint.
The chuckled might be heard from El Cajon to Encinitas.
They are the 
