Chargers get Jim Harbaugh's mystery messages loud and clear

Coach Jim Harbaugh signals his Chargers from the sideline.

Columnist

Sept. 4, 2024 3:15 AM PT

Even after listening to Jim Harbaugh speak throughout the Chargers’ training camp, edge rusher Khalil Mack still can’t figure how his new coach’s brain is wired. Whenever Harbaugh is talking, Mack has no idea what he’s about to hear.

“Never know what he’s going to say when he’s in front of the whole group of people in the team room,” Mack said as he looked down to conceal his smile.

Rookie linebacker Junior Colson played under Harbaugh over the three previous years at the University of Michigan, and he can’t predict the metaphor that Harbaugh might use to convey a certain idea.

“He still catches you by surprise sometimes,” Colson said.

That’s also the case at news conferences, in which Harbaugh’s stream-of-consciousness soliloquies and unusual word choices often make reporters glance at one another with amusement.

Last week, Harbaugh was explaining the importance of practice squad players being ready to play in case they are suddenly elevated to the active roster.

“They gotta stay frosty,” he said, comparing players to beer mugs.

Later, when asked about his evolution as a coach, Harbaugh described himself as open to change and used a mall-entrance simile to make his point.

“In general, just the open door, that’s the one I seek,” he said. “It’d be like if you went to the mall and sometimes they have that bank of doors and several are shut but one’s open. I’m not trying the one that’s closed. I’m walking through that open door.”

It was quirky.

It was weird.

It was Harbaugh.

“Definitely don’t know what to expect,” Mack said.

Chargers linebacker Khalil Mack (52) smiles with his helmet off before a game

But Harbaugh’s unpredictability as a speaker is balanced by his consistency as a coach, which is why his players respect him as much as they like him.

“Everything is understood,” Mack said. “Everything is said in front of everybody and everybody’s on the same page. So you go throughout your day knowing what you’re going to get, especially from top to bottom. The expectation is the expectation.”

Entering their season opener against the Las Vegas Raiders at SoFi Stadium on Sunday, the Chargers are a changed team.

“The leadership is there from coach Harbaugh,” said Mack, an eight-time Pro Bowl selection.

Practices are more purposeful. Drills have clear objectives. Players are more focused.

Colson said Harbaugh isn’t the same coach he was when he won a national championship at Michigan.

“You gotta coach differently at certain things because now you got older guys,” Colson said.

However, Colson added, “to the core, he’s still the same person.”

That person is competitive. That person is driven. That person sounded like the eccentric uncle of Clayton Kershaw, the famously self-motivated Dodgers left-hander.

Asked last week if he was satisfied with reserve quarterback Easton Stick’s progress in the preseason, Harbaugh replied, “Satisfied? That is just a word I’d never use in connection to football in any way. Going forward, that word is just a … I hardly even ever … that’s a cringe-worthy word. That’d be in the bottom five as far as it relates to football words. It would not even be up there in the top five. It’d be in the bottom five.”

Why?

“Comfortable would be right there with satisfied,” Harbaugh said. “It just doesn’t resonate to me in football. The other words are better. Engaged. That’s a tremendous word. Execution. That’s a top-five word. Reckoning. Those are real football words to me. Satisfied, bottom five.”

Players sound as if they have bought into Harbaugh’s mindset. They sound as if they believe they will win, and why not? Harbaugh has won everywhere he has coached, including in his previous NFL assignment with the San Francisco 49ers.

Harbaugh’s personality can be felt in every corner of the Chargers’ new training facility in El Segundo, enough to where the fatalism that once permeated this franchise has vanished overnight.

This is no small matter. The Chargers were defined by their history of Chargering, and overcoming that history was the goal of each of Harbaugh’s predecessors. The previous coach, Brandon Staley, went as far as to speak to his players about the franchise’s past failures.

This isn’t to say the Chargers will be Super Bowl contenders right away, as the 49ers were when Harbaugh became their coach. But the questions about the Chargers aren’t so much about whether they will be successful as much as they are about when they will be successful. Them winning at some point in the relatively near future feels like a safe bet.

As for what Harbaugh will say next, well, that’s another story.