Despite the injuries on offense, the Chargers seem to have the on-field product going through two weeks.
After beating the Raiders and keeping things close with the Chiefs, Los Angeles will look to improve to 2-1 against the Jaguars this Sunday at SoFi Stadium.
With that, here are four reasons to be confident in a Bolt’s victory:
Strength of schedule
According to Football Outsiders, Jacksonville has had the second-easiest schedule to start the season of any team, contributing to their current second-place standing on the DVOA leaderboards. Los Angeles, meanwhile, has faced the 11th toughest schedule, including a Kansas City team currently ranked 4th by overall DVOA. So this, on paper, is the toughest game for the Jaguars of their young season and the easiest for the Chargers. Granted, that’s with only two other games of reference, but it’s still something worth considering when examining how Jacksonville has found success early on.
Healing up
Brandon Staley said at practice on Tuesday that all of Justin Herbert (ribs), Keenan Allen (hamstring), Donald Parham (hamstring), Corey Linsley (knee), and Trey Pipkins (ankle) are day-to-day, which should mean that at least half of them will be available for this game. I assume Herbert, Linsley, and Pipkins will play, but getting Allen or Parham back would do wonders for this offense. We saw how much the Chargers struggled to separate without Allen on Thursday against the Chiefs. Darious Williams has struggled to adjust to an inside corner role for Jacksonville this season. Parham is the only threat down the seam this team has; getting him back should open up the rest of the offense. If all five players can go on Sunday, we’ll finally see what this offense is supposed to look like.
Talent difference
Assuming everyone is healthy, the Chargers have a better team than the Jaguars. Of course, not everyone is healthy for Los Angeles, but somehow everyone is healthy for Jacksonville. The Jaguars are also playing exceptionally well under new coach Doug Pederson – I don’t mean for this section to make it sound like the Jags are devoid of talent. But these two teams are on different trajectories right now. Jacksonville would be happy to make the playoffs for the first time since the Myles Jack Was Down game in 2017. L.A. has its sights set on a Super Bowl run. These are the games teams like the Chargers are supposed to win, and there should be a certain amount of confidence coming into Sunday that they will.
Home field advantage
Jacksonville has never beaten the Chargers in California despite having five chances to do so. Trevor Lawrence has also started his career 0-9 on the road in a Jaguars uniform. The Jaguars have only beaten the Chargers three times in 12 attempts – Week 5 of 2003, Week 11 of 2007, and Week 10 of 2017. In all three of those games, the loss put the Chargers at .500 or lower – in 2003, it dropped them to 0-5. All that is to say, generally, if Jacksonville beats L.A., it’s because the Chargers are bad and also in Florida. Given that they are neither bad nor in Duval County this weekend, historical precedent tells us L.A. should have this one in the bag.