[Harbaugh] “The Offensive Line doesn’t need any other position to be good. Every other position needs the Offensive Line to be good.” 20 months later, the Chargers have by far the worst offensive line in the league, and Herbert takes more hits than a punching bag.

[Harbaugh] "The Offensive Line doesn’t need any other position to be good. Every other position needs the Offensive Line to be good." 20 months later, the Chargers have by far the worst offensive line in the league, and Herbert takes more hits than a punching bag.
byu/Comfortable-Cod7763 inChargers

32 comments

  3. Look, we get it. What are they supposed to do? They had 2 of the best tackles in the league and brought a promising guard in. If our tackles were healthy and we weren’t trying to shuffle around, we’d have a competent offensive line.

    It’s late in the season and we have to work with what we got. It’s so annoying to keep seeing this shit as if we should have drafted 10 back up offensive line and not anything else the last 2 years, just for this scenario. Last year everyone was bitching over no weapons for Herbert.

  5. Herbert seems to be a bit of a problem for himself, too. Hangs on to the ball way too long and doesn’t throw it away quickly if there’s nothing available. He can obviously make plays by staying alive, but that is taking its toll on the QB hits as much as the porous line.

  6. Everyone on here who says our OL would be better with our starting tackles is stating the obvious and every team feels the same. Doesn’t change the fact that not addressing the IOL has exacerbated those injuries. Between Slater and Alt they have missed 3 of 7 seasons combined not exactly dudes who you consider the modicum of health. OL is a physical position to play can’t ever assume a full season of health for anyone which makes depth crucial.

  7. Weird how he was so clearly knowledgeable about the situation in the importance and yet here we are two years later and frankly they didn’t really do that much in that time to get any better, and be a bit more prepared for this issue, which is sort of lingering at this point to most all of herbies career…

  9. We are 2 seasons in to a soft rebuild. Next season is where I expect to see a noticeable jump in everything all around.

  10. I feel like C is maybe more of an issue than LT and RT. Since I have memory I saw that when our quality C went down, the whole OL started performing like shit. It happened with Hardwick, it happened with Pouncey and it happened with Linsley. When you have competent C play, you might have the occasional bad game against a particularly strong pass rush but the whole OL globally performs better.

  11. People have short memories.

    In the preseason, the line looked like this:

    LT- Slater
    LG – Zion
    C – Turnstile Bozeman
    RG – Becton
    RT – Alt

    We were all excited for this unit except for the matador at the center position. No team in recent memory has been as beat up upfront. Harbaugh has to play PS guys and literally dragged Bobby Hart off the street and out of semi retirement.

    Then you have teams like the Rams who have like 6 guys on the injury report total, including 3 out for the year. The Chargers were playing a backup long snapper for fucks sake.

    The line is what it is at this point. 2026 should see heavy reinforcements as far as the depth goes and the tackles will be back and Becton and Bozeman will be long gone.

  13. We had our starting tackles most of last year and the middle was fucked up then. We’ve seen the difference a Pouncey or Linsey can make and we’ve gone with Bozeman for 2 seasons. It doesn’t make sense.

  15. In hindsight yes they should have stocked up on more offensive line. In fact we all knew that they should have probably stocked up just from being Chargers fans over the years.

    The thing is Harbaugh didn’t believe in the curse. You bet your ass he believes in the curse now though!

    He’s officially seen the ghost and hopefully will plan ahead so he can feed the ghost enough offensive linemen to keep it happy.

  17. Time to get downvoted because this sub all parrots the party lines of blind support. But the reality is we should not have drafted Hampton, doesn’t matter how good you think he is.

    Injuries are a known reality to expect. unless you’re brand new to the nfl which harbaughs is not. And slater alone would not have saved our saved us this season we’d still be in trouble. This was a foreseeable issue, front office screwed up and we should say it.

    We should have drafted another pick at OL since Harb knows how critical it is, and there are a million other ways to address RB without wasting a top tier pick.

  19. I’m more of a casual fan but even I know the Chargers actually addressed Oline. Hard to prepare for this many injuries :/

  21. Chargers fans should feel great about the future with our pass catchers. The O-line will continue to build.
    People seem to forget that we were a horrendous football team before Harbaugh took over.

  22. Look my final thoughts on this and then I’m done discussing it are as follows

    We lost TWO all-pro tackles. That’s fucking brutal no matter how you slice it.

    Becton has looked like shit in comparison to his time on the Eagles.

    Johnson has been quietly one of the most serviceable guys.

    Bozeman should never have been re-signed. He’s ass. And this is the only issue I actually blame coaching staff for.

  23. Obviously you haven’t heard, but the Chargers offensive line is currently not playing. Like do you get mad at your dead grandparents for not showing up to your birthday? Lol this is genuinely insane!

  24. The chargers have always had ridiculous injury problems. This is nothing new. This is the norm

  25. The 11 wins last year with the easiest schedule in memory, really fooled this regime to thinking this team was better than it was.

  26. I posted this as a response to another comment regarding Boseman but I think it applies to this entire post/mindset.

    I don’t think you realize how hard it is to find a competent OLine in the league bro. This shit ain’t madden, guys that good come at a premium. No team is giving up their OLine to free agency or trade. Any team in week 8-9 that has a functioning OLine is not giving up good linemen. They are giving up back ups at most. It’s hard for EVERYONE to find linemen. Thats why all we could get was Penning. It would be the same thing for a Center, we would just end up with another back up.

    Harbaugh is truly building one of the best o lines in the league in year 2 of his time here w the Chargers. If we weren’t injured this line would be top 5. Next year it will be top 2

    This is the reasoning behind keeping Bozeman. He is a veteran C in the league, good locker room guy, DOES WELL WHEN HE HAS THE RIGHT SUPPORT on the O Line. Thats the main reason. He’s serviceable when you have Slater, Alt and Becton with him. So they take a risk with keeping him and spend the big bucks on signing and keeping our skills positions. Thats what the team decided to do. Why? Because in year 3, they are not going need to spend money on skills players, it’s all taken care of. Which means ALL our draft picks & free agency money will be spent on building a MONSTER line.

    I get people want to win a superbowl this year but it was still a slim chance we could’ve competed with the top teams of the league. That being said, at the beginning of the season the front office set us up and a really good spot to make a playoff push even though we knew our IOL was gonna be an issues (injuries to most of your oline & 2 starting RB, is not normal either say what you want about injuries. Find me a team that made the playoff let alone be 7-4 with that situation). But that didn’t matter, doing well this season is just a bonus. Next season is when we will be primed to put together a dynasty level OLine with maybe 3-4 starting linemen with multi year contracts and substantial depth and investment.

    My original point is, as much as people hate our oline, the front office isn’t thinking “superbowl this year” they are thinking “dynasty next year”. Our cap space is gonna be one of the top in the league AND since all our fancy skill positions are taken care of, we can trade back in the draft and stock up on beefy OLine the entire draft. So I firmly believe Harbaugh still means what he says about the Oline being the tip of the spear. And they are “charging” up one of the nastiest OLines in the NFL. Im willing to bet next years OLine is gonna be the best in the league, mark my words

  28. I think where the Chargers failed this season was not having adequate depth in the O-line, and that the interior was still sketchy at best day one.

  29. Considering out two best offensive linemen got hurt he gets a pass, but no excuse for our interior offensive line play

  30. The people talking about the tackle situation are WILLFULLY obtuse. We know what happened there, it sucks. That’s not the point.

  32. I’m thinking about availability of future O-linemen draftees.  How would a dad answer his son on whether to tryout for Offensive lineman or Defensive lineman.  
    “Son, if you’re an OL, you’re gonna have to memorize lots of play calls and learn the OC’s schemes. You’ll have to learn enough about  your opponent to read the Defense before a play. You’ll get plastered whether your QB is in the pocket, or behind the pocket handing off, or jumping side to side waiting for an open WR.   The sack will be blamed on you.  You’ll be able to push designed-play run lanes open, but, your buddy next to you forgot how to run that scheme and it falls apart.  And, the next year, they’ll hire a different OC and you’ll have to learn new schemes.  
    I’d guess that a D-lineman makes about the same amount of $$, and just has to bone up about a few players to watch, mind the gap and push.  You probably won’t have to be in the game for every snap.  And you won’t get blamed if the QB is sacked.  I’d go D-line.”
    Jim’s not wrong.  Olinemen are very important.

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