Famous for losing leads, the Chargers might finally be trusted as a title contender

The optimism around the Los Angeles Chargers isn't just their 3-0 start, but that they've won the types of games the franchise once routinely lost.

Los Angeles Chargers coach Jim Harbaugh, a man who often invokes the phrase of living with “an enthusiasm unknown to mankind,” can be prone to hyperbole. Yet there was reason to believe him when, Sunday afternoon, he proclaimed to reporters that “I don’t think I have the vocabulary to express how great I feel.”

The optimism wasn’t just that Harbaugh’s Chargers had wrapped up a victory that improved them to 3-0, making them one of six remaining undefeated NFL teams, with each victory coming against an opponent within their division. It stemmed also from how the franchise famed for taking leads only to cough them up had beaten the Denver Broncos in Week 3.

After they took a 10-0 lead against Denver, the Chargers quickly allowed 17 unanswered points and still trailed 20-13 with five minutes left in the fourth quarter. With two minutes left, quarterback Justin Herbert shrugged off or evaded multiple would-be tacklers, scrambled to his left and was able to throw around an oncoming defender’s shoulder pad and fit the pass into a sliver of space for a 20-yard, game-tying touchdown.

“Just enough time to get the ball off,” Herbert said afterward, “and never a doubt.”

One minute later, the Chargers got the ball back and went on a methodical eight-play drive that ended with a game-winning kick as time expired. It was the kind of game the franchise had lost numerous times in its recent history. Since 2010, the Chargers had lost 45 games after having led at any point during the fourth quarter — the most in the NFL, according to the statistics database Stathead.