Los Angeles Chargers can kiss the playoffs goodbye

The Los Angeles Chargers sealed their fate for the 2019 season with a loss to the Pittsburgh Steelers on the road at home on Sunday Night Football.

The Los Angeles Chargers were showcasing on primetime exactly what it means to play Charger football. The team jumped out to an early deficit on dumb mistakes, had some terrible coaching decisions, missed a field goal only to give themselves a slight chance to tie the game in the fourth quarter.

Philip Rivers had just over a minute to drive 99 yards down the field to tie the game with no timeouts. Instead of running smart plays to get out of the endzone, however, the Chargers opted to heave the ball down the field.

The first attempt should have been intercepted. The second attempt was. The Chargers lost in the most Chargers fashion to a Pittsburgh Steelers team on its third quarterback, 24-17, in front of a national audience and a home crowd that was straight out of Pittsburgh.

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The Chargers had a very similar ugly loss last week against the Denver Broncos, but that one was somewhat excusable. It was a division matchup after all and the Broncos had to win at some point.

This loss, though — well it was just ugly. There is no way around it. The Los Angeles Chargers looked awful and it is time that we stop pretending that they are something they aren’t. This is not a playoff team and the Chargers essentially guaranteed that with the loss.

The Chargers are now 2-4 on the year in six games that, if we changed one play about each game, would have probably swung the other way. It wouldn’t take much to turn the 2-4 record into a 6-0 record.

But you can’t do that. And now under their belt, the Chargers have a loss to the Houston Texans (potential playoff team), Denver Broncos and Pittsburgh Steelers. The Chargers are 1-3 in the AFC, which is important for the playoffs.

If it comes down to them or the Texans then the Texans would get in because of the head-to-head matchup. They would have the advantage over the Colts, but the Colts might win that division.

The 4-1 Buffalo Bills seem to be a lock for a wild card spot. Their remaining schedule is not that challenging and as long as they play as they have been playing then they could be a 10 or even 11-win team.

The second wild-card spot is up for grabs with no other 4-1 team but the Chargers have done nothing to convince us that they can finish the year as strong as it would take to make the playoffs.

They would need at least nine wins to make the playoffs with the more realistic number being 10. As a fan of the team, I am sorry, but there is no way they are finishing the year 8-3 or 9-2.

Just look at the next stretch of games. They play another potential wild-card team in the Tennessee Titans in Tennesse next week. They then go into Chicago, are back home for the 4-1 Packers (that game will be all Packer fans), go into Oakland against the 3-2 Raiders, “host” the Chiefs in Mexico City and go up to Denver.

The Titans, Raiders and Broncos present the most winnable games and even those are tough. Even if they win all three, the way they have been playing, they are going to drop at least two of three against the Packers, Bears and Chiefs.

That would give the team a 6-6 record and need to go 3-1 at the absolute worst to maybe get into the playoffs.

The final four games of the year are against the Jacksonville Jaguars on the road, the Minnesota Vikings at home, the Raiders at home and the Chiefs in Kansas City. Those are all losable games. This current Los Angeles Chargers team that we are watching does not win all of these games. They would be lucky to win half.

It hurts to admit this as the reality but we have to stop pretending that the Chargers are just going to magically turn a corner and finally live up to the expectations. They are injured, mistake-prone and poorly coached.

That is not a recipe for success. A dominant win over the Pittsburgh Steelers could have shifted the narrative. Instead, the Los Angeles Chargers showed us that they are who we really think they are.