{"id":467275,"date":"2026-09-17T23:18:16","date_gmt":"2026-09-17T23:18:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/467275\/"},"modified":"2026-09-17T23:18:16","modified_gmt":"2026-09-17T23:18:16","slug":"upon-further-review-chargers-must-be-much-better-against-raiders-san-diego-union-tribune","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/467275\/","title":{"rendered":"Upon further review, Chargers must be much better against Raiders \u2013 San Diego Union-Tribune"},"content":{"rendered":"

EL SEGUNDO \u2014 The consensus from the Chargers\u2019 offensive, defensive and special teams coordinators on Thursday was that each of the three units was not good enough, not up to standards or expectations during a 26-14 loss to the Arizona Cardinals<\/a> in Sunday\u2019s season opener.<\/p>\n

Mike McDaniel, Chris O\u2019Leary and Ryan Ficken said the offensive, defensive and special teams play must be improved going into this Sunday\u2019s game against the Las Vegas Raiders. The response so far appears appropriate in Week 2 after a Week 1 bummer.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s a sampling of what each coordinator said about losing to the Cardinals in the fashion the Chargers did Sunday and what\u2019s been done to ensure there\u2019s not a repeat this weekend against their longtime AFC West rival, starting with an extended question-and-answer session with McDaniel:<\/p>\n

\u2018HUMBLE PIE\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201cYou have a lot of visions about coming to a new team and working on something for months<\/a>, and the vision never looked like that,\u201d McDaniel said. \u201cSo that\u2019s the beautiful thing about football. Like life, time spent forecasting, visualizing things going a certain way, the world, the league, no one cares about that.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo, it was a case of humble pie. It didn\u2019t feel good to anyone. It wasn\u2019t good enough. First thing Monday morning, the coordinators got with Coach (Jim Harbaugh), and it was so obviously over the top not what we wanted as our product of football that we set forth a plan of action.\u201d<\/p>\n

Atop the to-do list for McDaniel, quarterback Justin Herbert and the offense was cleaning up their act. Herbert was intercepted on something of a desperation heave toward wide receiver Derius Davis, for example. The Chargers were penalized seven times, for another.<\/p>\n

The Chargers\u2019 issues in the opener are fixable, according to McDaniel.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s been a long but very healthy week,\u201d he said. \u201cIt feels like a month.\u201d<\/p>\n

Overall, he said of Raiders Week so far, \u201cI\u2019ve been very happy with the response. That\u2019s what this league is about. It\u2019s not about how you accept high-fives, it\u2019s about how you handle things when things don\u2019t go the way you envision them. Truth be told, we didn\u2019t play good football<\/a>, and it\u2019s our job to do that (play well).<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t think the football was good enough and, certainly, not up to the potential that we have as a group of individuals. To me, it\u2019s been my favorite week of employment here because I know my experience in this league is that you do not measure anything beyond how a group of people handles adversity.\u201d<\/p>\n

McDaniel spoke with reporters for more than 30 minutes.<\/p>\n

\u2018NOT GOOD ENOUGH\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve got to bring it up in a lot of areas, we\u2019ve got to be better in a lot of areas,\u201d O\u2019Leary said of what he saw on the video of Sunday\u2019s game and what needed to be addressed this week. \u201cIt starts with prep, goes to coaching, in-game, playing the game \u2013 all of it. So, we\u2019re just excited to get better right now.\u201d<\/p>\n

In fact, the Chargers\u2019 defense wasn\u2019t very good on the Cardinals\u2019 first possession, when Arizona quarterback Jacoby Brissett picked them apart, leading to a 5-yard touchdown run by rookie Jeremiyah Love. But, unlike the Chargers\u2019 offense, the defense improved as the game progressed.<\/p>\n

The Cardinals\u2019 second touchdown was set up by a blocked punt that gave them possession at the Chargers\u2019 3-yard line. Brissett then hit tight end Trey McBride on a 3-yard touchdown pass that gave Arizona a 23-14 lead with 11:44 remaining.<\/p>\n

So, that wasn\u2019t a defensive letdown by any stretch of the imagination.<\/p>\n

\u2018GOT TO BE BETTER\u2019<\/p>\n

Ficken called the blocked punt a \u201cblemish.\u201d He also said, \u201cI believe it\u2019s cleaned up, but we\u2019ve got to be better, and not just in that punt situation, but in all situations, in all phases. I would say we\u2019ve got a lot of room to grow. I\u2019d be lying if I said I love exactly where we\u2019re at right now.\u201d<\/p>\n

He added: \u201cThe good news is that it\u2019s just one game, but I told the guys we can\u2019t allow it to define us. We\u2019ll only let it define us if we allow it to. We\u2019ve got a new opportunity and we\u2019re going to attack this game plan this week, and that\u2019s what our guys have done so far.<\/p>\n

\u201cI know they\u2019re up for the challenge.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"EL SEGUNDO \u2014 The consensus from the Chargers\u2019 offensive, defensive and special teams coordinators on Thursday was that…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":467276,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[1333,752,74,76,75,127],"class_list":["post-467275","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-diego","tag-los-angeles-chargers","tag-nfl","tag-san-diego","tag-san-diego-headlines","tag-san-diego-news","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/467275","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=467275"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/467275\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/467276"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=467275"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=467275"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=467275"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}