Swanson: Pain and appreciation for Chargers after wild-card loss

EL SEGUNDO — Nineteen of the 20 TVs lining both ends of the Chargers’ locker room were tuned to ESPN on Monday afternoon, the network’s hours and hours of NFL playoff programming going on without the men in the building.

They paid no attention to what was being broadcast above them, and didn’t plan to. For the Chargers, this season is over.

It ended abruptly Sunday night in a stunningly noncompetitive 16-3 loss to the New England Patriots. In a weekend of wild-card thrillers, the Chargers delivered a dud.

Back-to-back 11-6 seasons ending in a wild-card whimper wasn’t what anyone who enjoyed showing up to work all season at The Bolt wanted, of course. “Right where we were last year, so it doesn’t feel great,” defensive back Elijah Molden said. “It stings.”

“I really thought we were set up to make a run,” second-year receiver Ladd McConkey said. “I liked our matchup going into the week, and I liked our path … like, ‘OK, we know what we’ve got to do.’ But we didn’t get it done.

“Right now it just sucks. That’s the only word I got: It sucks.”

It’s not the result that’s going to win hearts and minds in Los Angeles, to which the team from San Diego told the world it was moving nine years ago, to the date of Monday’s mass locker-cleaning.

This latest loss was not what Jim Harbaugh had in mind when he took over as head coach of this purportedly cursed franchise two seasons before. It definitely didn’t help the case of quarterback Justin Herbert’s staunchest defenders, in and outside of the locker room.

It was … what it was, said Khalil Mack. Which is: Football. Life.

“You got to go back to the drawing board sometimes and really take a step back and see what it is and what everybody can get better at,” said Mack, the 34-year-old linebacker who is a nine-time Pro Bowler and 0-6 in the postseason – and who will be a free agent, if he decides to keep pushing.

“It’s bumps and bruises, but ultimately it’s all lessons, and you can also apply those same lessons to life, as well.”

And quite assuredly, the Chargers, in a true team effort, took this latest reality check on the chin.

Defensively, they were fine. They were good. Tip of the hat to defensive coordinator Jesse Minter, who has coached so well he’s now being courted by the Las Vegas Raiders, Tennessee Titans, Baltimore Ravens and Cleveland Browns as a potential head coaching candidate.

Still, anything short of a shutout from Minter’s defense wasn’t going to win Sunday in a game where the Chargers’ only score was a 21-yard field goal in the second quarter – an astoundingly poor showing, offensively.

Harbaugh’s magical optimism didn’t translate into points. Herbert couldn’t find the often-elite gear that did in the regular season, enduring another of the worst games of his career at one of the worst times. The Chargers’ $262 million man fell to 0-3 in the playoffs, each of those defeats distinctly disastrous.

This time, his receivers couldn’t get open or offensive coordinator Greg Roman couldn’t find a way to get them open – and on the occasions they did, a harried Herbert didn’t find them.

And, ouch, did the much-maligned offensive line fail painfully.

Beset by injuries all season, including to standout tackles Joe Alt, and Rashawn Slater, the Chargers used 25 incarnations up front. That churn left Herbert often running for his life – and for more yards than ever before his in his previous five NFL seasons.

New England caught up with Herbert too, knocking him around with body blows that probably made you flinch at home. But early in Sunday’s game the offensive line actually had “done well enough up there protecting him,” as NBC broadcaster Cris Collinsworth put it.

In the end, Herbert finished 19-of-31 passing for 159 yards. He was sacked six times for 39 yards and sounded resigned afterward, expressing little conviction about whether he has what it takes to solve his playoff problem.

“I don’t know,” he told reporters in Foxborough, Mass. “I haven’t figured it out yet and it hasn’t happened, so we’ll have to reevaluate and see what happens.”

He’s hard on himself like that, Mack said. But he’ll get over the hump, his teammates assured anyone asking.

So go ahead, critique him all you want, said Slater, who missed the entire season with a torn patella tendon.

“Who’s gonna be harder critic of you than yourself?” Slater said. “Like if I needed somebody or Justin needed somebody to [motivate him], I don’t think we’d be here if that was the case. It’s frustrating for sure, but whatever; our time is coming.”

Said Alt: “I got no worries about Justin … he’s the best quarterback you could ask to play for.”

“He’s the best (freaking) quarterback in this league,” said center Bradley Bozeman, his eyes ringed in red, he was so emotional about the topic. “Flat out. Guy’s special, it just sucks that (we didn’t) get him there.”

But there’s always next year, when an assuredly new-look Chargers team will try, try again – starting, hopefully, without all the injuries to the offensive linemen in the trenches on which so much of a team’s success is predicated.

“I’m really excited,” Mekhi Becton said. “We’re gonna have the line that we came in this year excited about, so we’re gonna be able to protect 10 [Herbert] like we’re supposed to.”

But having to start all over for another shot at getting it right? Doesn’t that sound like a lot of work? A chore? An exhausting exercise?

It sounds great, Mack said. He might or might not be back, but he appreciates the challenge, “what you got to put in to win in this league.”

“I love this game,” he said, “with the ups and the downs.”