{"id":439201,"date":"2026-08-21T08:08:11","date_gmt":"2026-08-21T08:08:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/439201\/"},"modified":"2026-08-21T08:08:11","modified_gmt":"2026-08-21T08:08:11","slug":"5-takeaways-why-jim-harbaugh-wants-improvement-from-chargers-after-preseason-loss","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/439201\/","title":{"rendered":"5 Takeaways: Why Jim Harbaugh Wants Improvement From Chargers After Preseason Loss"},"content":{"rendered":"

Justin Herbert made his second straight appearance in the preseason on Thursday night.<\/p>\n

But the Chargers quarterback only saw the field for a trio plays as the unit went three-and-out to open the game.<\/p>\n

The Bolts began with an Omarion Hampton run to the right that lost a yard before Herbert found tight end Charlie Kolar in the flat for a 9-yard gain.<\/p>\n

But Herbert’s third-down pass intended for Ladd McConkey fell incomplete as the offense trotted off the field.<\/p>\n

“The three plays they were in there … kind of hard to judge them on three plays,” Harbaugh said.<\/p>\n

Harbaugh noted that the plan was for the starters to play one series, meaning he didn’t consider putting them back out there for another drive.<\/p>\n

“We had a plan … stuck to it,” Harbaugh said.<\/p>\n

The Chargers rolled out a starting offensive line of, from left to right, Trey Pipkins III, Kayode Awosika, Jake Slaughter<\/a>, Cole Strange and Joe Alt.<\/p>\n

Like Herbert, Alt exited the game after three plays as he was replaced by Travis Burke at right tackle.<\/p>\n

Slaughter got the start at center after Tyler Biadasz sustained a left knee injury during Tuesday’s joint practice with the 49ers.<\/p>\n

3. Defensive starters get early work<\/p>\n

The majority of the Chargers defensive starters also saw action Thursday night, getting a dozen plays in against the 49ers top offense.<\/p>\n

The unit \u2014 which didn’t include Derwin James and Khalil Mack \u2014 saw plenty of third-down work.<\/p>\n

The Bolts starters faced three different third downs on San Francisco’s opening offensive drive and allowed the 49ers to convert each time.<\/p>\n

But safety Elijah Molden finally put an end to the sequence when he notched a pass breakup on third down to force a punt near midfield.<\/p>\n

All in all, the Chargers top defense gave up 39 yards on 12 plays before giving way for younger players to get meaningful reps.<\/p>\n

The plan for the third and final preseason game is for the Chargers starters to play two series instead of one.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Justin Herbert made his second straight appearance in the preseason on Thursday night. But the Chargers quarterback only…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":439202,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[7710,34795,7708,7709,29868,48,52,51,47,50,49],"class_list":["post-439201","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-los-angeles","tag-app-homepage","tag-articles-5-takeaways","tag-homepage-cp","tag-homepage-headlines","tag-jim-harbaugh","tag-la","tag-la-headlines","tag-la-news","tag-los-angeles","tag-los-angeles-headlines","tag-los-angeles-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/439201","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=439201"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/439201\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/439202"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=439201"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=439201"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=439201"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}