The Chargers' Defense Forced Five Turnovers. Justin Herbert Still Lost the Game.

Four first-half takeaways became 10 points, and a fourth-quarter interception at the Buffalo 23 set up the Bills' winning drive.

The Chargers' defense took the ball from the Buffalo Bills five times on Sunday, and the Chargers still lost 24-16 to fall to 0-3.

I'm done spreading the blame around. This one belongs to Justin Herbert.

Sam Farmer's game story in the Los Angeles Times makes the case without much help. Farmer reported that the Chargers turned four first-half takeaways into just 10 points.

Linebacker Daiyan Henley forced one fumble and recovered two. Safety Tony Jefferson recovered another. That's a defense handing its offense short fields over and over, and getting field goals back.

The red zone tells it in two lines. Each team got inside the 20 four times, the outlet reported. Buffalo scored three touchdowns and kicked a field goal. The Chargers kicked three field goals and scored one touchdown.

Then came the throw. Early in the fourth quarter, the Chargers led 13-10 and were working from the Buffalo 23, fresh off a strip sack of Bills quarterback Josh Allen. Herbert tried to thread a pass to Marquez Valdes-Scantling, a recent signing, at the goal line. Bills safety C.J. Gardner-Johnson picked it off and ran it back 41 yards. Buffalo then drove 13 plays, and Allen scored from a yard out for the Bills' first lead of the day.

Run the arithmetic on the alternative. A field goal there makes it 16-10. A touchdown makes it 20-10, with Allen, who had three rushing yards and no scrambles through three quarters, chasing two scores on the road against a defense that had already taken the ball away five times.

Herbert didn't dodge it. "It starts with me. I've got to play better and allow our offense to score more points," he said afterward. Coach Jim Harbaugh, asked about his quarterback, said he wasn't singling anybody out.

I will.

If you've spent three weeks yelling about Mike McDaniel, you've got real ammunition. McDaniel, the new offensive coordinator, runs an offense heavy on motion and misdirection, and a Times column last week argued his complicated scheme was wrecking the Chargers' attack. Against the Las Vegas Raiders, a shotgun snap bounced off receiver Tre' Harris's knee on third-and-one. On Sunday, second-and-goal from the 1 turned into a field goal after two false starts in three snaps shoved the Chargers back to the 11. Kicker Cameron Dicker also hooked a 45-yarder in the second quarter.

Every one of those cost points, and none of them were Herbert's. I came in half-ready to split this loss three ways.

Allen is what talked me out of it. For three quarters, by Farmer's account, he looked nothing like the quarterback who'd helped Buffalo score 77 points in its first two wins. Then he got the ball back in the fourth, took the lead and pulled away. Both quarterbacks had a rough afternoon. One of them finished it.

Gardner-Johnson, who has played in two Super Bowls, put it bluntly: "Teams like [the Chargers], that ain't really been to the top, they don't know how to finish." A scheme can put a quarterback at the Buffalo 23 with a lead. It can't choose the window for him.

Since 2013, teams with five or more turnovers and a minus-four margin in a game are 3-81-1, according to research by Evan Abrams of Action Network that the Times cited. The Chargers are the only team to lose in that spot, the outlet reported. What that record can't capture is field position, and the Chargers kept getting it handed to them.

Fox pointed out during its broadcast, according to the Times, that Buffalo's last win despite five turnovers came in 1997. That was against an Indianapolis team that blew a 26-0 first-half lead. The Colts' quarterback that day was Jim Harbaugh.

Herbert says it starts with him. It'll have to start fast: next comes a trip to Seattle, then Denver at home, then Kansas City, the Rams, Houston and Baltimore.

Source: latimes.com, retrieved September 28, 2026.