From 0-3 to the playoffs: History offers Chargers

On one facet there’s hope. On the other, historical past.

Three weeks is only a sliver of the NFL season; a backsliding group has lots of time to appropriate its course.

That said, only seven groups in the Super Bowl period have rebounded from an 0-3 start to make the playoffs.

That’s a sobering statistic for the Chargers, Houston Texans and Tampa Bay Buccaneers, all winless so far. As for the 0-3 Miami Dolphins, effectively, that isn’t fairly as surprising.

“We’re searching for every possible way to give ourselves an advantage,” said Chargers coach Jim Harbaugh, whose group misplaced at Buffalo last Sunday despite 5 takeaways and a plus-four turnover differential.

The uphill climb continues for the Chargers, who play at Seattle on Sunday, with the defending Super Bowl champions itching to reply to an upset loss at Washington in Week 3.

So far, the change at offensive coordinator to former Dolphins coach Mike McDaniel has been a bust for the Chargers. Their offense has sputtered and wheezed, even as their protection has completed its half to keep them in video games.

Elsewhere Sunday, the Texans play host to Dallas, Tampa Bay hosts Green Bay, and Miami performs at 3-0 Minnesota.

Of those seven groups that dug themselves out of a foreboding pit, only the 1992 San Diego Chargers turned their season around after an 0-4 start — so it’s just about now or never for this 12 months’s class of Sunday strugglers.

The others to make the playoffs after dropping their first three video games had been the 1981 New York Jets, 1982 Buccaneers, 1995 Detroit Lions, 1998 Buffalo Bills, and the Texans, who pulled off the feat in 2018 and last season… and now discover themselves back in that dank basement.

“We’ve been here before,” Houston quarterback C.J. Stroud told reporters this week, “so we know we can get this thing turned around.”

For those who have made that euphoric U-turn, there are life classes to draw upon. Chief among them, don’t panic.

Former Lions linebacker Stephen Boyd recollects the composure and calm of Detroit coach Wayne Fontes, after three losses to Pittsburgh, Minnesota and Arizona — two of those by a discipline aim.

After the third loss, Boyd said, “Wayne Fontes walks into the meeting room with a big smile on his face and says, `Listen, here’s the deal, we’re going to give the ball to Barry [Sanders] a little bit more, and we’re going to get this turned around.’”

Sure enough, the Lions broke through the following week with a win over San Francisco on Monday evening. But there have been more bumps in the street for Detroit, which by November was still a dismal 3-6. Few may have predicted the membership would win its remaining seven video games.

That set the stage for a unusual wild-card sport against Philadelphia in which the Eagles constructed a 51-7 lead and held on despite the Lions scoring 30 factors down the stretch. The remaining rating: 58-37.

Three years before Fontes stored his cool under stress, Chargers coach Bobby Ross did the same.

“There were a lot of grumblings that this was just some college coach that didn’t know what he was doing in the pros,” recalled former Chargers linebacker Gary Plummer of Ross, employed out of Georgia Tech. “There were a lot of guys that were essentially jumping off the ship.”

That group held a players-only assembly after falling to 0-3… then acquired clobbered, 27-0, by the Houston Oilers in Week 4.

Ross held regular, though.

“He told us that he wasn’t changing,” Plummer said. “We were still going to have physical practices. He said that was the only way he knew how to coach.”

The Chargers responded by successful 4 in a row. Then, after a hard-fought, two-point loss to Kansas City, the Chargers tore off another seven wins.

Defense led the method for those Chargers, permitting just 241 factors that season, the fourth-fewest in the NFL.

So far this season, these Chargers are exhibiting related tendencies. Last Sunday, the protection performed a gem of a sport, and definitely through three quarters.

Hope still has a heartbeat, but that grows fainter by the loss.