The Chargers wasted zero time making changes in the wake of their loss Sunday night to the New England Patriots in an AFC wild-card game. They announced Tuesday morning they parted ways with offensive coordinator Greg Roman and offensive line coach Mike Devlin.<\/p>\n
Hired nearly two years ago, Roman was roundly criticized for his lack of imaginative play-calling during the Chargers\u2019 16-3 loss to the Patriots<\/a>, when their offense failed to generate more than a second-quarter field goal from Cameron Dicker. The Chargers managed only 159 yards through the air and 87 on the ground.<\/p>\n Quarterback Justin Herbert seemed uncertain about how to contend with the Patriots\u2019 defense. He completed only 19 of 31 passes and scrambled for 57 yards and 10 runs. The Chargers failed to establish anything resembling a potent ground game with Kimani Vidal rushing 11 times for 31 yards.<\/p>\n Overall, the Chargers\u2019 offense lacked the creativity shown by other playoff teams, including those who also were defeated in their wild-card matchups. Their plays seemed predictable and unimaginative by comparison to the winning teams, including the Patriots, who had at least one or two tricks up their sleeves.<\/p>\n Coach Jim Harbaugh said late Sunday night that the Chargers would look at \u201ceverything\u201d as another lengthy offseason began. Roman was Harbaugh\u2019s hand-picked offensive coordinator, having worked together with the San Francisco 49ers more than a decade ago in Harbaugh\u2019s first head coaching job.<\/p>\n \u201cYeah, right now I don\u2019t have the answers,\u201d Harbaugh said Sunday when asked about Roman and the lack of offensive punch. \u201cWe\u2019re going to look at that, at everything. It really falls on me that we weren\u2019t at our best tonight. I don\u2019t have the answers. I wish I did. We\u2019ll work hard. It\u2019ll be a new beginning.\u201d<\/p>\n Asked if Roman was the right person to be calling the plays, Harbaugh said, \u201cI don\u2019t have that answer right now. I know you\u2019re being very specific. We weren\u2019t good enough as a team. That\u2019s what we do. We win as a team and we lose as a team. That\u2019s my responsibility to have the team in a better position.\u201d<\/p>\n Neither response was exactly a ringing endorsement.<\/p>\n Several offensive linemen also questioned Roman\u2019s approach during exit interviews with reporters Monday. Right guard Mekhi Becton, who completed his first season with the Chargers after three with the New York Jets and one with the Philadelphia Eagles, said he never found a comfort level with Roman.<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s a lot of different things I\u2019m not used to,\u201d Becton said. \u201cThat\u2019s all I can say. There\u2019s a lot of different things I\u2019m not used to. \u2026 We haven\u2019t talked about it. We didn\u2019t talk about it after the game, so I don\u2019t know. It was just different. That\u2019s all I got. I\u2019m not going to go into everything. So, yeah, it was just different.\u201d<\/p>\n Left guard Zion Johnson, a pending free agent after the Chargers declined to pick up the fifth-season option on his rookie contract before the 2025 season began, said simply of his experience with Roman, \u201cI think he has a lot of creativity in his play calling and I think it\u2019s been good.\u201d<\/p>\n Added center Bradley Bozeman, who worked with Roman when both were with the Baltimore Ravens, \u201cHe always does his best in everything he does. There are games where we\u2019re not great or successful on offense, and some of it is our fault. Some of it is our scheme. Some of it is different things.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s not all on one person. We\u2019re all in this together.\u201d<\/p>\n In fact, the Chargers\u2019 offense was hamstrung from almost the start. Left tackle Rashawn Slater, a Pro Bowl selection twice in four seasons, suffered a season-ending knee injury<\/a> during training camp. Joe Alt, a standout right tackle who shifted into Slater\u2019s position, then sustained a season-ending ankle injury<\/a> in Week 9.<\/p>\n That the Chargers managed to win 11 games and advance to the playoffs for the second time in Harbaugh\u2019s two seasons as coach was surprising. Herbert was the NFL\u2019s ninth-leading passer during the regular season with 3,727 yards in 16 games. Herbert fell to 0-3 in the playoffs, however.<\/p>\n Harbaugh and Chargers general manager Joe Hortiz are scheduled to speak with reporters\u00a0 Thursday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Chargers wasted zero time making changes in the wake of their loss Sunday night to the New…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":674842,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2064],"tags":[241,7,1014,262,2444,2443,6,9,1004],"class_list":{"0":"post-674841","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-los-angeles-chargers","8":"tag-chargers","9":"tag-football","10":"tag-los-angeles","11":"tag-los-angeles-chargers","12":"tag-losangeles","13":"tag-losangeleschargers","14":"tag-nfl","15":"tag-sports","16":"tag-top-stories"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/115889701864611173","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/674841","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=674841"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/674841\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/674842"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=674841"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=674841"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=674841"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}