EL SEGUNDO, Calif. — Before the first practice of training camp that precedes the next chapter in the Los Angeles Chargers’ destiny, Jim Harbaugh was crossing the field in his cleats when his eye caught the path of All-Pro safety Derwin James. As always, the head coach spoke to a team leader and passed on one of his Harbaugh-isms.
“Hey, glide,” Harbaugh said, raising his right hand in the air, as if to simulate a plane taking off. “Glide today. We’ll be at 30,000 feet before you know it. Let’s do some gliding.”
James reached out and patted Harbaugh’s hand.
“I got you,” he said.
If you wanted a snapshot of Harbaugh’s dogma, here it is. Teach. Enthusiasm. Educate. Connect. Repeat with color and vigor. And, above all, never skimp on crazy analogies. None more classic than the one he shared with the media after that first practice, comparing the start of a football season to … childbirth.
“It feels like you’re coming out of the womb, you know?” Harbaugh said earlier this week. “It’s like you’re in there, comfortable and safe, and now — poof! You’re out there, you’re born. The lights are on, there’s light. There’s chaos, people looking at you, people talking to you. It feels good to have that happen.”
That story wasn’t just for the media’s enjoyment. He also told it to his players, including James, who had never heard his profession described that way.
“No, never,” James said with a laugh. “He’s his own man. I love him. We love him.”
Whether this will translate into these Chargers ultimately meeting or exceeding expectations remains to be seen. But the way the operation is set up (and some of the aggressive changes that have already occurred) certainly send a signal. Like some of the most successful regimes of recent years, there isn’t much waiting around within the walls of this franchise when it comes to attacking a roster. Any inclination to be paralyzed by evaluation or fear movement went out the window when Harbaugh was hired and paired with general manager Joe Hortiz, who comes from a Baltimore Ravens operation that produces personnel talent the way Harvard supplies top-notch law firms.
The make-or-break nature of that duo was perhaps never more apparent than in their first offseason together, when they let go of a ton of veteran talent. It was half a salary-cap purge and half a cultural overhaul, moves that included trading away a starting wide receiver who had become an institution in uniform (Keenan Allen), the free-agent departure of another young but oft-injured wide receiver (Mike Williams) and then the refusal to re-sign a handful of other veterans who will either be key starters or rotational players on other teams (running back Austin Ekeler, linebacker Kenneth Murray and tight end Gerald Everett, among others).
Those moves were part of what should be a micro-rebuild rather than a wholesale restructuring, setting the Chargers on a path that will eventually resemble how sustained programs have long been established by franchises like the Ravens, Pittsburgh Steelers and Green Bay Packers. The goal: build a solid team through drafting, teaching and shaping culture, then conservatively use free agency and trades to improve weak points. All while attempting to carefully cultivate underrated tools like pursuing compensatory draft picks to fatten draft classes.
This is what Hortiz believes in as a builder. It’s what he learned in Baltimore from players like Ozzie Newsome and Eric DeCosta over 26 years. And now that he’s paired with Harbaugh, who has always been a consummate leader/teacher/philosopher as a head coach, the pairing feels like a software upgrade of some classic tandems. One that comes to mind? The Seattle Seahawks of the Pete Carroll and John Schneider era. In that regime, you had Carroll, the energetic coach/teacher, making his return to the NFL after a national championship with USC, paired with Schneider, the starting-from-the-bottom general manager whose “building from within” fundamentals were molded by Ron Wolfe and Ted Thompson.
In the end, the Carroll-Schneider matrix resulted in two Super Bowl appearances and one Super Bowl win (which really should have been two). The Seahawks’ mistakes aside, that’s not a bad goal for a Chargers franchise that hasn’t been to the Super Bowl since the 1994 season, particularly considering decades of wasting elite talent and failing to meet expectations time and time again.
What the team is selling now is something a little different: a proven winner at every level of football, who does things his way (sometimes unconventionally), but who is often true to what he believes and says. When he tells you he could draft an offensive lineman with the No. 5 overall pick, because he believes in building outward from a team’s line, then he could do just that. And when everyone assumes he has to take a wide receiver in that same spot, he and Hortiz select Notre Dame offensive tackle Joe Alt. When critics say the NFL is no longer won by a dominance of the run, Harbaugh and Hortiz lean toward laying the groundwork for a balance of the run.
“When you have a guy like Coach Harbaugh, who’s been there and won a lot of places, you know he’s not trying something for the first time,” defensive end Joey Bosa said. “He has a strategy that he knows works. It’s easy to buy into when you have a guy like that. Winning a national championship, going to the Super Bowl, you know, wherever he’s been, he’s had a lot of success. So to have a guy come in, lay out the plan and there’s no guessing. It feels good.”
That’s the faith and buy-in Harbaugh and Hortiz are in Los Angeles to build. Thoughtfully and methodically, it’s something fans should keep in mind during a 2024 season that will be about more roster measurement and getting the right pieces around quarterback Justin Herbert to sustain him for the next decade and beyond. It’s something Harbaugh might have been alluding to when he described the team’s preparation heading into the regular season.
“The analogy would be an airplane taking off from a runway,” Harbaugh said. “You know, it starts from zero and it starts picking up speed, and it gets so fast that it just has to take off. And then it takes off and it doesn’t take long until you’re at about 30,000 feet. Just to make sure we don’t have any mishaps while we’re at it, I call it ‘glide.’ We’re in glide time.”
For now, that’s what these Chargers need. Not the recent spate of rockets — packed with talent, fuel and promise — that only explode in various ways, from the launch pad to the edge of the stratosphere. Instead, what’s being built is a rise that’s dedicated to being steady, reliable and sustainable. Aiming upward, toward a destination Harbaugh believes will arrive before anyone notices.
