LOS ANGELES — The question appeared to annoy Los Angeles Chargers outside linebacker Bud Dupree, who furrowed his brow following the Chargers’ 27-17 win over the Tennessee Titans in Week 10.
“There’s a narrative around this defense that you guys have played lesser offenses so far,” a reporter asked, “Are you excited to prove that you guys could do that against top offenses?”
Dupree nearly cut the question off before it was finished:
“I mean, we played everybody the Chiefs played, right? So what is the difference between us and them? I mean, I’m for real. Can you answer that?” Dupree asked. He continued: “I mean, they got a good defense, right? Exactly so, call a tomato a tomato or whatever you want to call it.” (The Chargers haven’t played all the teams the Chiefs have played this season yet but will match up with many of the same opponents, which Dupree was alluding to).
Safety Derwin James Jr. was frustrated by a similar question following the Chargers’ 27-10 win over the Cleveland Browns in Week 9.
“This team just beat the Ravens last week and the Ravens are going to be in the playoffs,” James said. “So we can’t get up here and act like ‘You ain’t doing this,’ ‘You ain’t doing that.'”
After being one of the league’s worst defenses last season, under first-year defensive coordinator Jesse Minter the Chargers have been the NFL’s best defense, holding teams to a league-low 13.1 points per game. It’s a shift that players credit to the frustration of being the Chargers’ weakness in recent years, and a coordinator that makes the game plan simple and prioritizes unity.
“There’s an it factor there,” coach Jim Harbaugh said of Minter, who Harbaugh believes will be a head coach next year.
Still, the one caveat to this defense’s success has been its opponents. The Chargers have feasted on many of the NFL’s worst offenses en route to becoming the fourth team in the last 40 seasons to hold their opponents to 20 points or less through nine games. According to ESPN Analytics, the Chargers have played the second-easiest schedule this season ahead of the Chicago Bears, but the road gets much tougher moving forward.
Over their next five games, the Chargers will face some of the league’s best offenses in the Cincinnati Bengals, Baltimore Ravens, Atlanta Falcons, Kansas City Chiefs, and Tampa Bay Buccaneers, who all rank in the top 12 in points per game. The five-game stretch will be this defense’s chance to prove its resurgence has been legitimate, starting with the Bengals in front of a national audience on “Sunday Night Football” (8:20 p.m. ET, NBC).
“Those games just show you who you are competitively, especially from a mental standpoint,” Mack said. He continued: “It’s going to be a challenge and I love challenges.” The Chargers’ current defensive roster was primarily built by the previous regime, a group laden with star players with many individual accolades, including outside linebacker Joey Bosa, pass rusher Khalil Mack, and James, who have 15 Pro Bowls amongst them.
But that hasn’t translated into team success. After trading for Mack in 2022, the Chargers defense came into this season ranked 23rd in points allowed per game, 27th in rushing yards allowed and 21st in passing yards per game. The previous seasons of disappointment have motivated the Chargers’ defensive stars this season.
“I think they’re tired of being great players individually and not really accomplishing a lot as a team,” Bosa said. “I know we’ve had some really good seasons here, but we’ve really never taken it to the next level and we just feel like we have the staff and we have all the pieces here to do that and we don’t want to miss out on our opportunity.”
One of the first changes Minter made as the defensive coordinator was a change to Saturday defensive team meetings. This season, players from each position group share their mindset ahead of the game and the position group’s key focus in front of the defense and coaches.
It’s a process that many players on the defense said they haven’t experienced in the NFL before, but it has shifted their thinking and helped them grow a greater appreciation for each other this season.
Linebacker Daiyan Henley, age 24 and in his first year starting, spoke in front of the group for the first time ahead of the Cleveland Browns game. It was a nerve-wracking moment for Henley, who said he told his teammates that he often isn’t thinking about his family when he’s on the field. Instead, his teammates are his family when he’s playing.
“I told them I play to make them proud,” Henley said. “That was real. I hope they took it in, and we went and got the W. So I hope that meant something. It meant something to me.”
Henley continued: “I think the biggest thing for us this season is that [Minter] tries his hardest to bring us together. I think a lot of our meetings are dedicated to the team, the players, getting to know the players and the players wanting to not play for themselves, but for each other.”
Through 10 weeks, the results have been evident.
Minter’s defense is allowing 10.1 points less per game than last year’s Chargers. Of the 17 defensive coordinators who entered the season in their first year as their team’s defensive coordinator, only five have seen their defense allow fewer points per game than last season.
Since 1990, only five defensive coordinators in their first year with a team have seen an improvement of at least 10 points per game from the previous season. It hasn’t happened since the 2002 Colts with defensive coordinator Ron Meeks and first-year head coach Tony Dungy. The only team to allow fewer points per game than the Chargers (13.1) through nine games of a season in the last decade was the 2019 Patriots (10.9).
One of the more impressive parts of the Chargers’ defensive resurgence has been that this defense has stayed afloat while its best players have missed games with injuries. Starting cornerback Asante Samuel Jr. has been on injured reserve since Week 4 and cornerback Kristian Fulton, the other starting cornerback, has missed the last two games.
In the Chargers win over the Titans, the defense sacked quarterback Will Levis seven times while Mack and Bosa played only 22 snaps, nursing separate injuries. “It’s Jesse Minter,” James said of the defense’s success. “And we are deep… We got a deep-ass team.”
In previous years James said that if a starting defensive back got hurt the defense would struggle. But the Chargers additions (CBs Tarheeb Still and Cam Hart, safety Elijah Molden) and Minter’s straightforward approach to coaching the defense have made this year different.
“It’s complicated for the offense to understand, but it’s not complicated for us,” James said.
Minter said his coaching approach comes from his time as a defensive assistant almost a decade ago with the Baltimore Ravens. In Baltimore, safety Eric Weddle helped Minter understand that sometimes coaches can “overteach” defense and that “there’s a simplicity you’ve got to find” to have an effective defense.
“I do think that we have a very teachable defense,” Minter said. He continued: “That to me is like the major goal of anything … how can the guys take what you’re trying to do, understand it really well, [and] become problem solvers on the field.”
The only issue with the Chargers’ defensive revival is that Minter will likely become a popular candidate for head coaching jobs this offseason if they continue to play this way. It’s a point that Chargers players acknowledge but are trying to avoid.
“At the end of the day, success breeds success in this business,” defensive tackle Morgan Fox said with a smile.