The Chargers are 0 and 6. This is not, in itself, a scandal; several teams in the history of football have begun a season with zero wins. What is remarkable — what will be studied for generations — is that the man who has never before in his life begun anything at 0 and 6 says he is comfortable.
Jim Harbaugh, entering his second season as head coach of the Los Angeles Chargers, told reporters after the bye that he did not think he would be standing at a podium answering this question — the correct reading of the situation, and the last word said about it in a defensive key. Since then he has kept the offensive play caller, Mike McDaniel, in place, and speaks about the arrangement the way a man speaks about a marriage that is going through something.
To understand how this is being received in the stands, we spoke for forty minutes with Margaret Ordonez, 81, a season-ticket holder in Chula Vista since the team wore blue and gold in San Diego and owns four televisions for the specific purpose of watching football simultaneously.
Q: The Chargers are 0 and 6. How do you feel?
A: “I feel like I’m watching a man carry a piano up a hill, and people keep asking him why he doesn’t set it down. He’s not going to set it down. I’ve seen him in Michigan in February. He likes the piano.”
Q: Harbaugh says he trusts the play caller.
A: “That’s growth. Last year he would’ve said he trusted himself. Now he trusts a guy. That’s a whole sermon, that is.”
Q: Do you think they’ll make the playoffs from 0 and 6?
A: “The 2021 team started 6 and 0 and missed. So the opposite has never happened, but I don’t believe in math, I believe in the Chargers, and those are different religions.”
Q: What do you say to people leaving early?
A: “They always leave early. In San Diego they left early when we won. My husband left a playoff game in 2007 to beat traffic and died in 2016 having never seen a playoff win, so ‘leaving early’ is a lifestyle I outlived.”
The franchise record for worst start is, at this writing, 0 and 6, a category the team currently holds outright — technically, a lead. Harbaugh has promised the defense will “look at everything,” a phrase supporters have decoded as meaning the coach will personally inspect the unit the way he once inspected a practice field’s grass height with a ruler, an anecdote the organization neither confirms nor, importantly, denies.
Ms. Ordonez renewed her tickets on Tuesday. She says the 0 and 6 has been good for the neighborhood — everyone is outside, talking about the piano.