Chargers encounter more special teams disasters after third coaching change this season

In 2010, the San Diego Chargers missed the playoffs with a 9-7 record despite ranking second in points scored and 10th in points allowed. How did this happen? Well, their special teams units were one of the worst in recent NFL history — they ranked dead last in the league in Special Teams DVOA by a crushing margin. San Diego’s DVOA was minus-10.2%, and the Colts ranked 31st at minus-6.3%.

Evidently, the Chargers didn’t leave these issues in San Diego when they moved to Los Angeles before the 2017 season. Through the first 13 weeks of the 2020 campaign, head coach Anthony Lynn’s special teams units rank dead last in DVOA just as Norv Turner’s did a decade ago.

Lynn has tried his best to spackle his way through this debacle. He first demoted George Stewart and put Keith Burns and Chris Caminiti in that role, before several more special teams issues reared their heads in the team’s 45-0 loss to the Patriots last Sunday. At that point, Lynn said, “To heck with it,” and took over those duties himself.

Did that make things better? No. No, it did not. As Exhibit A, we give you what happened near the end of the first half in the Chargers’ game against the Falcons.

Here, you’ve got a run for no gain on third-and-1 with 22 seconds left in the half. From there, you have half the offense walking off the field as half the field goal unit comes on the field, an obvious too-many-men-on-the-field penalty, and a non-effort to get the ball through the uprights.

Lynn looks like he can’t even anymore, and we can hardly blame him. The Chargers blew three easy points because their special teams are by far the NFL’s worst — and it ain’t getting better anytime soon.