Jim Harbaugh is trying to change the Chargers' losing culture; here's how he's doing it

LOS ANGELES — Nearly 30 years ago, the San Diego Chargers faced the San Francisco 49ers in Super Bowl XXIX. The Chargers were outmatched that day — a 49-26 drubbing by one of the best teams in league history. Still, the future looked bright for the Chargers. They were a decade into ownership by the Spanos family and had promising talent led by linebacker Junior Seau.

Since then, the Chargers have become synonymous with disappointment. They’ve burned through nine head coaches and piled up embarrassing losses without another Super Bowl appearance, all while alienating their fan base in a move from San Diego to Los Angeles in 2017.

Last year’s 5-12 season, which included a 42-point loss to the Raiders in prime time, marked another dreadful chapter in the franchise’s history as another coach and general manager were subsequently fired under Spanos ownership.

“Our fans have stood strong through so many ups and downs and close games. They deserve more. Frankly, they’ve earned more,” owner Dean Spanos wrote in a statement after firing former coach Brandon Staley and general manager Tom Telesco. “Building and maintaining a championship-caliber program remains our ultimate goal. And reimagining how we achieve that goal begins today.”

Reimagining that goal led the Spanoses to coach Jim Harbaugh. The Chargers hired Harbaugh weeks after he led Michigan to a national championship, hoping his winning pedigree would rub off on an organization stranded in mediocrity.

In Harbaugh’s seven months on the job, players say he has shifted the culture of this team into one that embodies his hyper-focused football mindset. Harbaugh’s approach — working out with players, dispensing unique proverbs, developing an “us-versus-the-world mentality” — is a script that has worked everywhere he’s been since concluding a 14-year NFL playing career as a Charger in 2000. His first team in L.A. expects to contend.

Dating back to Harbaugh’s first head coaching job at the University of San Diego 20 years ago, he has turned struggling teams into winners. With his success, however, issues have followed, including reports of friction during his time coaching the 49ers and a contentious season spent battling the NCAA while at Michigan.

“The narrative that I’m hard to get along with or whatever other narrative out there is, that’s just people’s narrative,” Harbaugh told ESPN. “Nobody’s ever doubted where my heart is every single time: what’s in the best interest of the team that I am on.”

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WHEN CHARGERS PLAYERS speak of Harbaugh, it often begins with a smile or laugh — and they all have a story.

Defensive lineman Scott Matlock keeps a running tab on the most notable things Harbaugh says daily. Edge rusher Joey Bosa calls it a “LOL Book,” but it’s just a notes app on Matlock’s iPad.

“It’s just to help me remember,” Matlock said with a smile. “Those little funny moments and I can look back on it down the road and maybe after the season and see all of the funny things that were said.”

Safety Derwin James’ favorite moment is when Harbaugh compared the first day of training camp to childbirth, but many players struggle to find just one: “Anytime he gets in front of the team and talks, you’re waiting on something,” wide receiver Ladd McConkey said.

It’s a stark change from how last season ended. Players described a disconnected locker room and a coach in Staley who played favorites and lost his charm as the team, which had Super Bowl expectations, had another disappointing season. After firing Staley, the Chargers lost their final four games to finish 5-12, but one player, running back Joshua Kelley, told reporters that the team felt “more together” during that time.

Many of Harbaugh’s changes are aimed at bringing the team together. The Chargers locker room had been split by position groups, often leaving players siloed with those they were most around at practice and in meetings. Harbaugh altered that by reorganizing lockers in numerical order and adding players’ hometowns and high school rankings to their name placards. Harbaugh invites different players to address the team after each practice, which he calls “Wise words.”

“It feels like the coach is leading the team the way it should be led,” Bosa said. “It has the feel of being back in college with Coach [Urban] Meyer. The message is sent from the top and it doesn’t get mixed up as it’s moving down the ladder.”

Those details are apparent at practice, where Harbaugh uses large index cards for practice cues that read, “Thud no tackle” (players can bump but not tackle to the ground) or “Whiz tag off” (No bump or tackling) for the practice tempo. He issued “tempo violations” for players who disobeyed those cues. Harbaugh watches quarterback handoff drills closely with his hands on his knees, interrupting the drills a few times per week to show the QBs precisely how he expects them to sell a play-action.

“There’s a large emphasis on the details, extreme emphasis on the details. More than any team I’ve been a part of from college to high school to anything,” wide receiver Joshua Palmer said. “It’s the most detail-oriented emphasis I’ve ever been a part of.”

Another change has been Harbaugh’s participation in workouts — he joins them in a strength workout at the end of each practice. The most surprising part of his participation, players say, is that Harbaugh never joins in jest; he’s often the most serious part of the group.

“He’s a different character, man. He is a different individual in the sense of just no-nonsense,” linebacker Khalil Mack said. “Knowing the expectation, knowing what he expects from every individual. … He’ll tell you if you’re not meeting that expectation.”

Harbaugh’s confidence — to tell a player with Mack’s track record that he isn’t playing up to standard or hop into a workout with the rest of the team — is pumping belief into the team.

“I think everybody feels the new vibe,” linebacker Tuli Tuipulotu said. “… We feel more confident going into things.”

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AT HIS INTRODUCTORY news conference, Harbaugh said his goal for the Chargers was to win “multiple championships.” It would be a bold claim at an opening news conference for any new head coach, but it was incredibly confident, considering Harbaugh was taking over a five-win team without a Super Bowl title in its history.

Months later, that five-win team is without some of last season’s best players. When Harbaugh arrived, the Chargers were more than $50 million over the salary cap, forcing them to part ways with wide receiver Mike Williams, tight end Gerald Everett and running back Austin Ekeler. The Chargers also traded longtime wideout Keenan Allen, who had the best season of his career in 2023, to the Chicago Bears. The quartet accounted for 57% of quarterback Justin Herbert’s career passing yards, touchdown passes and completions.

The Chargers traded up in the second round to select Georgia’s McConkey, but the offseason moves left them with one of the league’s most inexperienced receiving groups. L.A. has one receiver with over 1,000 yards in a season (D.J. Chark Jr. with Jacksonville in 2019).

But Harbaugh has never won with prolific passing attacks. In San Francisco, his rushing offense was second in NFL yards per game over his three seasons (139.6), while the offense ranked 30th in passing yards over that span (12,270).

The Chargers haven’t had a feared rushing offense since the days of LaDainian Tomlinson. They aren’t known as a physical team that wins games at the line of scrimmage, typical of Harbaugh-led teams. The Chargers are known for high-scoring offenses and their eye-catching powder-blue uniforms, but Harbaugh wants to change that — at least the former.

“We’re going to be a tough team, a resilient team, a relentless team, a physical team; that’s what we’re going to aspire to be,” he said. “Don’t let the powder blues fool you.”

That process began in earnest when the Chargers selected tackle Joe Alt with the No. 5 pick in the 2024 draft. The Chargers chose Alt over a class with depth at receiver, the team’s biggest need. With the next pick the Giants chose LSU’s Malik Nabers, whose practice and preseason highlights have made waves on social media.

On draft night, Harbaugh grew frustrated with questions about the team’s decision to select a tackle.

“I know the question is going to come up, ‘What about a weapon?’ Offensive linemen, we look at as weapons,” Harbaugh said. “That group, when we talk about attacking on offense, the offensive line is the tip of the spear.”

Harbaugh moved Alt to right tackle, giving the Chargers an offensive line that features three former first-round picks; left tackle Rashawn Slater and guard Zion Johnson are the others. They plan to lean on that line and newly signed running backs J.K. Dobbins and Gus Edwards, who they believe will make life easier for Herbert.

“Can you imagine Justin Herbert with a great running game?” offensive coordinator Greg Roman said in February. “We don’t know, but I can imagine what it might look like. So that’s kind of the vision.”

There’s also excitement among players about how the Chargers’ defense will look under coordinator Jesse Minter. Harbaugh brought Minter to the NFL after he built Michigan into one of the best defenses in college football over his two seasons as the DC.

Michigan led the nation in fewest points allowed (13.1 PPG) and ranked third nationally in yards per play allowed (4.47) under Minter. Under Staley, the defense was the Chargers’ Achilles’ heel.

They ranked 30th over during his tenure in yards allowed per play (5.7), points (24.8) and rushing yards per game (134). Team sources complained about the complexity of Staley’s defense, noting the team never developed a defensive identity and either made massive adjustments, particularly before big games, or none at all.

Players have raved about Minter’s simplistic approach to his defense, one that plays to their strengths. Bosa was happy to learn that he won’t be dropping into coverage as often, his main focus being on trying to sack quarterbacks. Linebacker Denzel Perryman said, “We really don’t have to do too much thinking.”

“He’s always trying to put us in position to make plays and to help the next guy next to us,” cornerback Kristian Fulton said. “So I think the scheme really fits everybody.”

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MANY OF HARBAUGH’S news conferences begin with a light-hearted analogy or adage. After a training camp practice in early August, he started with a prepared statement.

“Never lie. Never cheat. Never steal. I was raised with that lesson,” he said emphatically. “I have raised my family on that lesson. I have preached that lesson to the teams that I have coached. No one is perfect. If you stumble, you apologize and you make it right. Today, I do not apologize. I did not participate, was not aware nor complicit in those said allegations. So, it’s back to work and attacking with an enthusiasm unknown to mankind.”

Harbaugh was replying to the NCAA’s notice of allegations, which accused him of breaking rules as part of impermissible in-person scouting and sign-stealing allegations that roiled Michigan’s championship season in 2023 and resulted in a three-game suspension of Harbaugh by the Big Ten.

Three days later, Harbaugh deflected a question about separate NCAA recruiting sanctions, which effectively banned him from college athletics until August 2028. “I’m stopping the engagement there with commenting,” he said.

The various sanctions levied against Harbaugh and Michigan will forever prompt questions about the legitimacy of the national championship. It’s a point that frustrates Harbaugh, who questions the NCAA’s authority.

“They’ve been keeping money away from players for decades. They just got hit with a $2.7 billion lawsuit,” Harbaugh said. “They have no credibility. That’s the truth.”

While Harbaugh says now that the idea that controversy has followed him is overblown, nine years ago, he spoke out about his dissatisfaction with how his first NFL coaching job with the San Francisco 49ers ended.

The 49ers had missed the playoffs for eight straight seasons before Harbaugh arrived, leading them to three straight NFC Championship Games. After the final game of his fourth season (an 8-8 finish), the 49ers announced they had agreed to mutually part ways with Harbaugh a year before his contract expired. In January 2015, Harbaugh told the San Jose Mercury News that he “didn’t leave the 49ers. I felt like the 49er hierarchy left me.”

Today, Harbaugh says he never had issues with former 49ers general manager Trent Baalke or any 49ers’ upper management during his tenure, downplaying their split.

“They said they were coming in and they’re going in a different direction,” Harbaugh said. “And I said, ‘Great, what direction are we going? And they said, ‘Well, we’re going in a direction, but you’re not coming with us.'”

Former 49ers tight end Delanie Walker, who coached with the Chargers during training camp, said that Harbaugh’s style built an “us-versus-the-world mentality” that can be difficult for those outside the roster and coaching staff to understand.

But at the same time, Walker said he noticed a slightly different Harbaugh at training camp than the one he played under more than a decade ago.

“Being in college [after the 49ers experience], I think, just changed his way of coaching,” Walker said. “He gave the players a lot of opportunity to have an input in what practice was going to be like. .. His growth and understanding of what players need and how they feel has changed a lot.”

Whether Harbaugh’s tenure plays out as contentiously in the end as it did in Michigan or San Francisco, it’s a risk that the Chargers are comfortable taking. Owner Dean Spanos and his son, team president John Spanos, dismissed the idea that Harbaugh has been complicated to work with elsewhere.

“The people that I’ve spoken with, who’ve worked with Jim, it was a lot of positive,” John Spanos said. “His passion and energy rubs off on you a little bit and the whole mindset of attacking each day with an enthusiasm unknown to mankind. I mean, I know it kind of sounds clichè, but he lives it, he breathes it, and it is real, and it rubs off on people.”

Despite the Chargers’ five wins last season, many players have pointed to the team’s eight one-score losses as evidence they are close to being a contender. Harbaugh’s changes to the culture and philosophy have players believing that this team will contend this season.

“Every year, you feel like you’re going to attack it. You feel like you’re the team to beat. You feel like you’re going to win the Super Bowl, but this year, it just feels right,” James said. “And Coach Harbaugh is getting the message across to everybody; he’s leading the team, and everyone is following suit.”