They can barely fill the 30,000-seat StubHub Center. When they do, it’s with the help of fans of the opposing team.
And that could soon be changing.
As the Rams soaked up the attention and the headlines and the praise, the Chargers quietly have gone about their business, racking up wins and, in the 2018 Thursday night finale, authoring a stunning comeback capped by a gutsy (but smart) decision to go for the win, and getting it.
And here are the L.A. Chargers, now two wins and a very plausible Chiefs loss at Seattle in prime time away from nailing down the No. 1 seed in the AFC.
If they get it, they don’t really need it. The Chargers boosted their record away from L.A. to 6-0 on the year, making the team without a home-field advantage perhaps the most likely to go on the road and win in the playoffs. Even though they may not have to.
The push to a potential division crown and top seed in the playoffs should wake up anyone/everyone who had overlooked the team that had become second fiddle in the City of Angels. The Rams got there a year early. The Rams hosted a playoff game to cap the 2017 season. The Rams kept acquiring big-name players in the offseason. The Rams, as the 2018 campaign unfolded, became the darlings of the league.
But the Chargers continued to push, quietly, steadily, inevitably. They still have plenty of work to do (and they need help from the Seahawks or the Raiders), but they are now in a spot where no one would have expected them to be, not in a season that has been dominated by the Rams, Chiefs, Saints, Patriots, Steelers (until recently), and the Cowboys (recently).
So get your Philip Rivers or Melvin Gordon or Mike Williams or Melvin Ingram or Joey Bosa or any other player’s jersey and get ready for a team that hasn’t done much in the last decade to possibly do something memorable, something historic. The Chargers have earned their spot among the league’s elite, and it’s time for their new hometown to respond accordingly -- along with the rest of the country.