The Chargers will face the Raiders in the first game of the Jim Harbaugh era and it’s hard not to think about how the last meeting between the AFC West clubs factored into Harbaugh’s arrival in Los Angeles.
That meeting came in Week 15 last season and it saw the Raiders humiliate the Chargers 63-21 on the Chargers’ home field. The Chargers fired head coach Brandon Staley and General Manager Tom Telesco — who now holds the same job with the Raiders — the next day and Harbaugh was hired a little more than a month later.
Harbaugh has had a chance to put his stamp on the team over the last seven-plus months and safety Derwin James said he thinks the coach has the team in “a good spot,” although he added that the proof of that will have to come on the field.
“It definitely feels different because it’s new, everything is new for us,” James said, via Elliott Teaford of the Orange County Register. “But all that don’t mean nothing. We’ve got to go out there and play Sunday. We’ve got a game against the Raiders. It’s a division game and we’ve just got to go out there and play.”
Harbaugh has won at every stop he’s made as a coach and the Chargers are banking on that continuing in his return to the NFL. We’ll find out how much of an instant impact he’s made on Sunday.
