The Chargers saw their season come to an end with a 32-12 loss to Houston on Saturday.<\/p>\n
Here are five takeaways from the Wild Card Round.<\/p>\n
The Chargers are headed in the right direction under Jim Harbaugh.<\/p>\n
But playoff success will have to wait for another year.<\/p>\n
The Bolts, who entered the postseason on a three-game win streak, couldn’t put a complete performance together when it mattered most.<\/p>\n
And the disappointment was palpable in the postgame locker room.<\/p>\n
“They were the better team today, all respect to them,” Harbaugh said. “Not being the better team today, I’m accountable for that. That’s on me.<\/p>\n
He later added: “All facets\u2026 I’m accountable. Went bad, that’s on me.”<\/p>\n
Khalil Mack said: “It’s very high. Knowing what we’re capable of, didn’t come out and perform at the level we supposed to today.”<\/p>\n
J.K. Dobbins added: “Very, very disappointed. Very disappointed.”<\/p>\n
The Chargers season is now over after the Bolts went 11-6 and earned a Wild Card Spot in Harbaugh’s first season at the helm.<\/p>\n
But players made it known in the locker room that they didn’t expect the season to end like this.<\/p>\n
All season long, the Chargers thrived on playing complementary football focused on turnovers, disciplined play and possessing the ball.<\/p>\n
None of it clicked Saturday.<\/p>\n
The offense was out of rhythm for most of the game, going just 3-of-11 on third downs. The Bolts held the ball for more than 10 minutes in the opening quarter but possessed it for just 15 minutes the rest of the way.<\/p>\n
Defensively, the Bolts did their part with three takeaways and three sacks. But it wasn’t enough as the unit wore down over the final few quarters.<\/p>\n
Even special teams contributed to the loss as the Bolts had an extra point blocked and returned for a 2-point play while a punt was nearly blocked.<\/p>\n
A bright spot for the Bolts?<\/p>\n
Rookie Ladd McConkey had nine receptions for 197 yards, with the latter total setting a rookie postseason record.<\/p>\n
McConkey is just the third rookie to surpass 150 receiving yards in a playoff game, and his 197 yards are the third-most by a player in their first playoff game.<\/p>\n
“He was a beast. Incredible player, tough as they come,” Harbaugh said. “Love the way all the guys fought and battled and the effort that they gave was outstanding.”<\/p>\n
The Chargers will now clean out their lockers and get ready for the offseason knowing the future is bright in Los Angeles.<\/p>\n
“Wouldn’t trade nobody for nobody. No coach, no player,” James said. “We just didn’t get it [done], we wasn’t a better team today. It’s not basketball, we ain’t got a series to seven. They got us today and we got to move on from it.”<\/p>\n
Alohi Gilman added:”Proud of all our guys putting their hearts into it. Sucks man, but proud to be a part of this team.”<\/p>\n
Harbaugh said: “Favorite ball team I’ve ever been on. One thing I can promise you is the sun will come up tomorrow and we’ll be attacking it with an enthusiasm unknown to mankind.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Chargers saw their season come to an end with a 32-12 loss to Houston on Saturday. Here…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":174929,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2056],"tags":[38531,37,3460,7,34,38,221,253,2368,36619,6,222],"class_list":{"0":"post-174928","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-houston-texans","8":"tag-2024-post-1-editorial","9":"tag-app-homepage","10":"tag-articles-5-takeaways","11":"tag-football","12":"tag-homepage-cp","13":"tag-homepage-headlines","14":"tag-houston","15":"tag-houston-texans","16":"tag-houstontexans","17":"tag-los-angeles-chargers-at-houston-texans-2024-post-1","18":"tag-nfl","19":"tag-texans"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/114782231812959965","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/174928","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=174928"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/174928\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/174929"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=174928"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=174928"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=174928"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}