The Chargers’ postgame locker room was nearly silent. Players sat glassy-eyed, many still in full uniform, trying to process what had just happened. It wasn’t easy or simple to digest how it all went wrong in such a short period of time, how a 27-0 first-half lead became a 31-30 loss.
“I’ve been playing football for 21 years and I’ve never felt like this,” Chargers safety Derwin James Jr. said softly after a most remarkable, most unfathomable, most unconventional AFC wild-card playoff loss to the Jacksonville Jaguars on that 45-degree night, Jan. 14, 2023, in north Florida.
The Chargers return Sunday to Jacksonville for the first time since that humiliating, humbling defeat. That game and how it unraveled hasn’t been forgotten by the Chargers who remain on the roster, preparing to return to the scene of that unthinkable loss. How could it be? Why would it be?
“I’m excited to go back,” James said earlier this week. “I’m excited to go back to Florida, overall, as a person from Florida. I’m excited to have my family there. Can’t wait. Team is way different. Coach is different. I don’t even think we wear the same color uniforms. Our socks are different.
“So, we’re ready to go play, and I can’t wait.”
Any extra emotions given what happened nearly three years ago?
“No, no, no,” James insisted.
Another player, seated a dozen or so lockers from James, told a different story.
“There’s not too many people in the locker room that were here for that 2022 season, but the guys that were here, there’s a little bit of an extra focus, a little bit extra attention to detail in terms of how we’re approaching this game,” Chargers left guard Zion Johnson said the other day.
“Anyone who was on that team and went through that has that feeling of never wanting to go through something like that again. So, I know, for me personally, I want my level of execution to be high. I’m locked in. I’m focused.”
In fact, of the 22 starters for the AFC wild-card game against the Jaguars, only seven remain, including James and Johnson. The others are quarterback Justin Herbert, offensive linemen Trey Pipkins III and Jamaree Salyer, wide receiver Keenan Allen and outside linebacker Khalil Mack.
What they experienced was unlike anything any of them had experienced before the Chargers and Jaguars met for the second time during the 2022 season. Jacksonville had routed the Chargers, 38-10, handling them with ease during a regular-season game Sept. 25, 2022 at SoFi Stadium.
The Chargers came out primed for a payback in the rematch. They seized a 17-0 lead by the end of the first quarter, with Austin Ekeler scoring on a pair of rushing touchdowns and Cameron Dicker kicking a 22-yard field goal. They intercepted Jaguars quarterback Trevor Lawrence three times.
Justin Herbert threw a touchdown pass and Dicker kicked the second of his three field goals as the Chargers extended their lead to 27-0 with 4:25 remaining in what had been their best and most dominating first half of the season. The Jaguars countered with a late TD pass from Lawrence.
Then it all went haywire.
The Chargers couldn’t stop the Jaguars and couldn’t move the ball. Dicker kicked a 50-yard field goal for their only score of the second half. He also missed a 40-yard kick that would prove critical. Lawrence rebounded to throw three second-half touchdown passes to rally the Jaguars.
Riley Patterson’s 36-yard field goal as time expired gave Jacksonville its only lead of the game, the only lead it would need to win and send the Chargers back to Southern California wondering what had happened. Still, years later, no one can fully explain their second-half meltdown.
Herbert refused to even several days ago, apparently determined to leave the past in the past.
“I think that’s two or three years out of the past and we’ve moved on since then,” said Herbert, who completed 25 of 43 passes for 273 yards and one touchdown in his playoff debut, but was only 10 of 19 for 134 yards in the second half. “We’ve all learned from it, so we’re moving on.”
In fact, big changes happened in the season and the offseason that followed. Coach Brandon Staley and general manager Tom Telesco would be fired late in the 2023 season and Jim Harbaugh and Joe Hortiz would be hired to replace them after the Chargers went 5-12 and missed the playoffs.
“I think it was Michael Jordan who said, or maybe it was somebody who said it for him, but there’s just certain things you’ve got to keep in your pocket and bring them out whenever the opportunity comes,” Mack said. “I mean, it’s always one of them for me. I love going against this team.”
Chargers at Jacksonville
When: 10 a.m. PT Sunday
Where: EverBank Stadium
TV/radio: CBS (Ch. 2)/KFI 640 AM, 105.5 FM, 94.3 FM