The regular season finale for the Chargers unfortunately came and went with little to highlight in their 19-3 loss to the Broncos. With the Bills beating the Jets on top of their loss, the Bolts are now set as the AFC’s No. 7 seed and will now face the Patriots on the road in the wild card round.

Now, if there was one impressive takeaway from this throwaway game it’s that defensive coordinator Jesse Minter is still on the ball when it comes to preparing his defense on a week-to-week basis.

With most of the unit’s impact players standing on the sideline, the Chargers defense held the Broncos to zero offensive touchdowns and four field goals, most of which came after a Los Angeles turnover. If Minter wasn’t already a hot head-coaching candidate for this year’s cycle, this likely put him right back near the top of some team’s lists.

In the meantime, the Chargers will now set their sights on the postseason where they’ll look to win their first playoff game since the 2018 season.

For a complete recap of today’s game, keep it right here.

The Chargers won the toss and chose to receive the ball so the offense was up first.

Lance’s first completion went to Keenan Allen for a gain of six on second-and-10. Allen needed six receptions coming in to Sunday for a $750,000 incentive to cash and Greg Roman seemingly knows it as he was targeted twice in the team’s first three plays.

The Broncos churned out a long 15-play, 81-yard drive that ended in a short field goal by Will Lutz to take a early 3-0 lead.

On the third play of the next Chargers drive, Lance’s pass to KeAndre Lambert-Smith ricocheted off the rookie’s hands into the arms of cornerback Ja’Quan McMillan who returned it 45 yards for a touchdown.

The second quarter was mostly uneventful as both teams struggled to move the ball for final 15 minutes before halftime. Los Angeles’ defense stiffened up after the opening Denver drive and Lance and Co. continued to find any consistency.

Just before the break, Lance got the Chargers in field goal range and Cameron Dicker was good to bring the score to 10-3 at the break.

The Broncos offense found a groove on offense to begin the second half with a seven-play, 52-yard trek on their second drive that once again ended in a short Lutz field goal. At this point the Chargers defense continued to do their job as they’ve allowed just six points up to this point in the game.

With a little over eight minutes left in the quarter, Lance found Allen for his sixth reception of the game to cash in his $750,000 incentive. The catch also moved the chains for the Chargers as they looked to respond with points after the latest Broncos field goal. Unfortunately the offense stuttered and Lance was sacked on third down to force a punt.

On the first Chargers drive of the first quarter, the Bolts had the ball for one play before edge rusher Nik Bonitto stripped Lance in the pocket after beating Austin Deculus and the Broncos recovered deep in Chargers territory. But once again, the Chargers held tough in the red zone and held Denver to another field goal which increased their lead back to 13 points.

The Broncos tacked on one more field goal after another 10-play drive to make it 19-3 with 2:23 remaining in regulation.

Unfortunately, Los Angeles waited just a little too long to have one of their best drives of the game as they put together a string of 16 plays, but they came away with zero points after Lance was pressured out of the pocket which led to a throwaway on fourth down.

The Broncos knelt the ball just once to ice their win after that.

The Chargers have locked down the No. 7 seed and will face the Patriots on the road in the wild card round.