The Chargers Might Have A Greg Roman Problem

When the Chargers first got Jim Harbaugh, I was elated (and still am). When he inevitably hired his buddy Greg Roman as OC, though, there was a small level of hesitation. I follow enough Ravens fans to see some of the onslaught of hatred he got during his years there but I was willing to overlook it. You know why? The run game.

Since Herbert has gotten to the league, the Chargers run game has been putrid. Consistently ranked near the bottom of the league in YPC. That is just never going to win football games regardless of meta game trends. Along with DC Jesse Minter fixing one of the worst defensive units in the league, if Roman could figure out a good run game then I would trust Herbert to figure out the rest. However, yesterdays loss to the Cardinals has opened Roman up to a lot of criticism. It featured a 350 yard passing day from Herbert with ZERO touchdowns, moving the Chargers 30th in the league in red zone touchdown %. There are a couple of layers to this. 

Roman has not really figured out the rushing game with this unit. The tackles (Alt and Slater) are fantastic but the middle (Johnson, Bozeman, Pipkins) is BAD. J.K. Dobbins is looking electric running to the outside but the team only ranks 20th in rushing YPG and 26th in YPA. They racked up big yardage vs two of the worst rush defenses in the league in Carolina and Las Vegas but have been otherwise not great. 

Naturally, if the run game isn't working, they should dial in on the pass. But instead of focusing on the players that we know can make something happen (Dobbins, Vidal, Palmer, Ladd), Roman was dialing up jet sweeps and bubble screens for Jalen Reagor, who hadn't even been on the team a month and only just got elevated off the practice squad. That just cannot happen in 2024.

All this said, as much as I want to blame Roman and only Roman, I can't. The bottom line is that this team is still rebuilding, so the O-Line isn't going to be perfect by any means. On top of that, this WR corps is DECIMATED. 

WR1 is not a WR1 and doesn't stay healthy. WR2 cannot catch a football. WR3 is a rookie being asked to do EVERYTHING and rising to the challenge. The rest of the room is practice squad players. There just isn't much that Herbert or Roman can be asked to do here. Roman isn't Andy Reid and Herbert isn't Mahomes. The one real hope is that GM Joe Hortiz can put together a reasonable package for a guy like Dionte Johnson and make sure not to curse his QB with mediocre WR play like at his last stop, Baltimore. 

Like I said when the Chargers signed Harbaugh, this was never going to be a playoff competitive team in year 1. I'm content living with a dead year for the rebuild but I absolutely refuse to see significant snaps for Jalen Reagor without speaking up.