Joe Burrow had just led the Bengals on a breakneck second-half comeback, tying the game with a 17-yard hitchhiker strike to Ja’Marr Chase early in the fourth quarter. That’s when Chargers head coach Jim Harbaugh had a simple message for his team.
“Just respond,” he said after his club’s 34-27 win moved the Chargers to 7-3, just two games behind Kansas City (9-1) in the AFC West. “Just because we lost the momentum didn’t mean they had it. We’re going to get it back. Our guys just didn’t flinch, didn’t buckle, didn’t even stumble. They just kept right at it and responded.”
That they did. After Cincinnati erased a 27-6 deficit with three touchdowns over a 13-minute stretch, the Chargers finally stopped the Bengals (4-7). And before J.K. Dobbins torpedoed the football over the pylon on the game-winning 29-yard touchdown with 18 seconds left, there was a sense the Chargers had overcome something more than simply defeating the Bengals. NFL Network analyst Peter Schrager remembered how past Chargers teams had wilted in these situations.
“They were up and rolling in this game…and then they had a meltdown,” said Schrager on Monday’s edition of Good Morning Football. “You go to the second half of this game, Cincinnati came roaring back.”
They came roaring back after Justin Herbert – who’d finished the first half 10 of 14 for 183 yards and two touchdowns – fumbled away the Chargers’ momentum on the first snap of the fourth quarter. Geno Stone recovered and the Bengals cashed in. Burrow engineered a seven-play, 71-yard drive to tie the game, 27-27, on his touchdown pass to Chase. Burrow was 28 of 50 for 356 yards with three touchdowns and no interceptions. Chase finished with seven catches for 75 yards and two touchdowns. Cincinnati hung 27 points on the league’s No. 1 scoring defense, the most Los Angeles has allowed since Dec. 14 last season.
“The Chargers were Chargering,” said GMFB co-host Kyle Brandt.
But Schrager said the Chargers “did something they used to not do.” They responded. Midway through the fourth quarter, rookie Tarheeb Still broke up a third-down pass intended for Chase to force Cincinnati to settle for a 48-yard field-goal attempt that sailed wide left off the foot of Evan McPherson. On the Bengals’ next drive, the Chargers thwarted another opportunity and forced McPherson to miss another field goal, this one from 51 yards out.
Herbert, who was 17 of 36 for 297 yards and two touchdowns without an interception, saved his best for last. With 45 seconds left in a tie game, he vaulted his name into the MVP conversation with an MVP drive that included a pair of All-Pro throws – both to rookie Ladd McConkey, a prodigy Harbaugh said reminds him of a former All-Pro receiver.
After completing 28- and 27-yard passes to McConkey, Herbert handed the ball to Dobbins. And rather than taking a knee on the 1-yard line, Dobbins summersaulted into the end zone. Most of the key contributors in the comeback win, including coordinators Greg Roman and Jesse Minter, had nothing to do with Chargers history before 2024. That was critical in Schrager’s eyes.
“Instead, they’re like, ‘Let’s just put this thing away with a touchdown run by J.K. Dobbins,’ who doesn’t know about the ghosts, and doesn’t know about the demons and is new to the team. An like their head coach and like their offensive coordinator and like their defensive coordinator, they don’t want to hear about the past Chargers franchise. It was about this one. They’re 7-3, they showed they can respond and they’ve got one of the best quarterbacks in football.”
They’ve also got the Harbaugh Bowl on their docket, next week at SoFi Stadium, where Jim Harbaugh will host brother John Harbaugh and the Ravens (7-4) on Monday Night Football (8:15 p.m. ET, ESPN/ABC). It’ll mark the coaches’ first meeting since Super Bowl XLVII on Feb. 3, 2013, when John beat Jim and the 49ers, 34-31.
For more information on the Chargers and Bengals, visit the L.A. Chargers and Cincinnati team pages at ProFootballPost.com.
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