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Alexander: How much can Jim Harbaugh change the Chargers?

September 6, 2024

EL SEGUNDO — How much do fresh atmosphere, environment and leadership really help on an NFL game day?

Or, to put it another way, will the ebullient, sometimes hokey but unwavering attitude Jim Harbaugh has brought to the Chargers be the antidote to … well, Chargering?

We will have 17 opportunities to find out this season, beginning with Sunday’s game at SoFi Stadium against the Las Vegas Raiders. (And for the moment we’ll overlook the fact that SoCal’s chapter of Raider Nation considers this one of 10 home games, eight in Allegiant Stadium in Vegas and one each in SoFi against the Chargers and Rams).

The day-to-day environment itself is dramatically different. The name of Chargers’ new training center, “The Bolt,” might be a shameless ripoff of the Dallas Cowboys’ “The Star.” But the three-story, 150,000-square foot facility is a dramatic improvement over the team’s temporary digs in Costa Mesa the past seven seasons. And – you can avert your eyes, San Diegans – it makes the team’s old quarters in Mission Valley look like the NFL training grounds equivalent of a two-room shack. It’s that opulent.

And while I didn’t see any inspirational signs encouraging Chargers players to attack every day “with an enthusiasm unknown to mankind” – one of the Harbaugh family’s favorite expressions, handed down from paterfamilias Jack Harbaugh – the influence of the new coach is there, and it’s unmistakable.

Consider: Each Chargers player this week got a collared work shirt with an inscribed name tag and an embroidered lightning bolt, the sort of shirt your mechanic wears when you take your car for servicing. The point: To get where they want to go, hard work is involved. Derwin James Jr. proudly displayed his at his locker after Thursday’s practice.

“It (the environment) definitely feels different,” he said. “Everything is new for us. … I love it. Very detailed, technicians, hard-working coaches.”

The idea that paying attention to the little things will enable you to conquer the big things? Here’s an example: Harbaugh himself organized and orchestrated the taking of the team photo, making sure every player was in the spot he needed to be. Potentially it’s like herding cats. This one was done in seven minutes.

“That was my first experience having a head coach kind of call everybody up and sit everybody down in the seat for the team photo,” edge rusher Khalil Mack said. “But he’s been like that this whole time. I talked to one of the ladies on the (team) plane, and he was cleaning up his area and she’s saying, ‘No, I got it.’ And he’s like, no. He’s walking the halls picking up (stuff), you know, so you kind of get a sense of the person he is and the man he is.

“He’s a detail guy, a detail-oriented guy. And so, yeah, it was different, but he’s a special dude.”

Offensive tackle Rashawn Slater played against Harbaugh’s Michigan teams at Northwestern. “We had him in the first half” of a Wolverines-Wildcats meeting in 2018, he said, “but then they turned around and put a beating on us.” From seeing his teams across the field and talking to fellow players after Harbaugh was hired in January, he had an inkling what was coming.

“They’ve really instilled this culture of, just preparation,” he said. “Preparation, hard work, consistency. That’s really at the foundation of everything we do, and I think everyone’s bought into that. And it’s very special. Simple but effective, you know?

“… The message (from other players) was, ‘You’re going to work, but you’re going to love him.’ And I would definitely agree with that. It’s been hard work, but we all bought into the vision and we all understand the purpose. And, you know, he’s a great guy.”

There’s a Ted Lasso kind of quirkiness to Harbaugh, sort of a befuddled uncle quality that can come particularly – but evidently not exclusively – at the interview podium. As Joey Bosa put it in a video interview with Sports Illustrated’s Albert Breer, “He has a unique perspective on things … he gets his messages across in a unique way, in a fun, kind of funny Jim Harbaugh type of way.”

During his midweek availability this week, Harbaugh talked about wanting to create a season where everyone in the organization, not just in the locker room, considers this the “favorite ball team they’ve ever been on.” He compared the tunnel vision involved in preparing for the season to “being in a submarine and ready to surface.”

And this was his answer when Channel 2’s Jim Hill asked Harbaugh what his biggest concern was going into the season:

“You do everything you can to prepare, but you just don’t know. The way the preseason’s set up, it’s hard for any team to know exactly what they have. So, yeah, it’s like, let’s go. We’re jumping out of a plane and let’s hope the parachute opens. You know, hopefully we all packed it in there good and it opens for us. And there’s been – I can’t say enough about all the people in the organization that have made sure that parachute is packed right.”

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There are no “Believe” signs in the Chargers’ locker room as far as I could tell, although each player’s nameplate includes not only his college but his high school alma mater and what his recruiting ranking was. Additional motivation intended, perhaps, for the guys whose nameplates read “NR” for “not ranked?”

However you characterize it, Harbaugh’s style has worked at each stop along his coaching trail – at the University of San Diego, at Stanford, with the 49ers, and at Michigan. If he can erase this franchise’s history – if he can bring home a Lombardi Trophy to be displayed in “The Bolt,” does that make him a miracle worker?

We’re about to find out. As Harbaugh put it this week, “Every day matters, but the games count.”

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Orange County Register

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Alexander: How much can Jim Harbaugh change the Chargers?

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