The Chargers are 5-8 and not going anywhere this season, and so it would be easy to write off their 45-10 victory over the Jaguars on Sunday as a meaningless game. But that game said more about the Chargers than it first appears.
Winning by 35 points in the NFL is hard: The Chargers’ win on Sunday was the sixth-biggest blowout in the league this season. And it continues a trend of the Chargers winning by significant margins while losing close games.
All eight of the Chargers’ losses this season are by seven points are less, while they’ve won multiple games by big margins: In addition to beating the Jaguars by 35, the Chargers also beat the Dolphins by 20 and beat the Packers by 15.
In total, the Chargers have outscored their opponents 289-251 over the course of the season. Their +38 point differential is far better than normal for a 5-8 team. It’s the 12th-best point differential in the NFL, something we’d expect to see for a playoff team. It’s a better point differential than the 10-3 Seahawks, 8-5 Steelers and 8-5 Texans have.
Does all this matter? It does, when assessing where the Chargers are and where they’re likely to be going forward. A team’s point differential is a better reflection of its overall quality, and a better predictor of how it will play in the future, than its won-loss record. The Chargers are a better team than their 5-8 record suggests, and they’re more likely to rebound in 2020 and have a winning record.
With Philip Rivers set to become a free agent in March, and with ownership concerned about the inability to attract fans in Los Angeles, the Chargers may decide in the coming offseason that it’s time to make major changes. But the Chargers are closer to being a good team than their record suggests.