The Los Angeles Chargers had a bit of a strange 2017 season. It involved them starting 0-4 and then somehow finishing 9-7 and just barely out of the playoffs. Now, heading into the 2018 season, things are looking up due to a strong roster. After a few years of missing the mark, now the organization is expecting a return to the playoffs. The question is, how does the path ahead of them to the playoffs look on the schedule?
Last Word on Pro Football is analyzing the schedules of all 32 NFL teams. Each team’s 16-game slate will be split into its most difficult (1-8) and easiest games (9-16). For this article, the hardest games on the Chargers schedules will be looked at.
Los Angeles Chargers Toughest Games of 2018 Season
1. Week Three: at Los Angeles Rams
On paper, this looks to be the toughest matchup. The Los Angeles Rams had a massive off-season and are now loaded on both offense and defense. On the defensive side, they now have Marcus Peters at cornerback. Despite his inconsistency, Peters has given Philip Rivers trouble over the last couple of years. And on the other side of the ball, the Chargers will have their work cut out for them. They will have to try to lock down a wide receiver corps led by Brandin Cooks, Cooper Kupp, and Robert Woods; and they’ll also have to try and stop Todd Gurley. Considering this is also the first “Battle of Los Angeles” between these two teams, that might make things all the more hard-fought. This will not be an easy one for the Chargers to win.
2. Week 13: at Pittsburgh Steelers
This matchup being ranked second assumes that Le’Veon Bell plays. If for some reason he is still holding out by Week 13 (which is rather unlikely), this game gets significantly easier. Otherwise, trying to stop him, Ben Roethlisberger and Antonio Brown is just no easy task. The Pittsburgh Steelers have put together consistently good squads the last several years around these three, and it’s worked. It doesn’t help matters that Rivers is 2-3 against Roethlisberger in his career.
3. Week 15: at Kansas City Chiefs
There’s a lot of uncertainty surrounding what the Kansas City Chiefs will look like this year. But this is still likely to be a tough game. For one thing, it’s a divisional game and the Chargers must play on the road at one of the toughest stadiums to play at. To make matters worse, the Chargers haven’t beaten the Chiefs at all in five years. And even better: it’s a primetime game late in the season, so there will probably be quite a bit of pressure (unless the playoffs aren’t at risk for them at that point). The Chargers could certainly come away with a win here, and if they beat the Chiefs at home in Week 1, they won’t have the pressure of snapping the streak on them. But playing at Arrowhead just is not easy.
4. Week Nine: at Seattle Seahawks
The Seattle Seahawks may not end up in the playoffs this year, but that does not mean winning on Seattle’s home field will be a cakewalk. Like the Chiefs, the Seahawks have one of the best home-field advantages in the league. And unless the home team in question is awful in a given season, winning on that home field is just not particularly easy. The good news for the Chargers will be that the Legion of Boom got dismantled this off-season. So as long as the crowd doesn’t get to them, the Chargers could still outscore the Seahawks just fine. Jumping out to an early lead and silencing the Seattle crowd could be key here.
5. Week Seven: vs Tennessee Titans
Despite the “vs” tag on here, this game is being played on a neutral field in London. So this will be somewhat unfamiliar ground for everybody. The Chargers have played there before, but that was 10 years ago. And the Tennessee Titans are coming off a playoff season and have a solid team. The Chargers are still quite capable of winning this game and arguably do have the better roster. But the Titans are still one of the tougher teams on the schedule this year.
6. Week 17: at Denver Broncos
At this point, we get to the two remaining teams in the AFC West and their road matchups. And the ranking here becomes a matter of which team is more likely to succeed. At this point, that looks to be the Denver Broncos as there are just fewer question marks on that team right now. And this is a Week 17 matchup, so the divisional rivalry here only gets fiercer if one or both teams are fighting for a playoff spot at that point (even if it’s just for one team to play spoiler). In the event that this becomes a must-win at that point in the season, it will probably only get tougher for the Chargers.
7. Week 10: at Oakland Raiders
The ranking here does in part boil down to it being a rivalry game. This one is more likely to be “in-between” rather than difficult or easy. The matchups between Rivers and Derek Carr have been pretty split; they are 4-4 against each other since Carr arrived. However, there’s an awful lot of question marks with this Oakland Raiders team right now. They do have a high ceiling, but things do have to work out just right for them. Whatever the case, this will probably be a pretty close game. It may depend upon how much Carr is able to spread the ball around.
8. Week Four: vs San Francisco 49ers
I’m not a very big believer in Jimmy Garoppolo. But the fact is that the San Francisco 49ers have a better roster now than the last couple of years and that they have a higher ceiling. But unless they do in fact continue to play the way they did late in the 2017 season, the Chargers should not have a ton of trouble here. The 49ers defense is still a little suspect, and Garoppolo will have to play against a tough Chargers secondary early in the season. This may be part of the “Most Difficult Games” list, but this game doesn’t really register as actually “difficult” the way some of these other games do.
Be sure to check out the Chargers easiest games of 2018.
