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The Los Angeles Chargers are fresh off a win against the Las Vegas Raiders on Monday Night Football.
Jim Harbaugh and Pete Carroll have a long history of coaching against each other, and have established yet another rivalry for the third time. It started when Harbaugh was at Stanford and Carroll at USC, and then again when Harbaugh was with the San Francisco 49ers and Carroll with the Seattle Seahawks. Now, they are coaching against each other in the AFC West, where the Chargers now own a 2-0 division lead. The Bolts can make it 3-0 with a win against the Denver Broncos on Sunday.
The Chargers’ defense led them to victory against the Raiders last night. Jesse Minter, the Bolts’ DC, perfected his game plan against Geno Smith and the Raiders’ offense. The Bolts picked off Smith (who played for the Chargers in 2018) three times in the win and pressured him a ton, forcing three sacks.
NFL Insider Dan Orlovsky, who called the game last night, was on ESPN today for NFL Live, talking about the Bolts alongside Mina Kimes.
.@DanOrlovsky7 says the Chargers defense is “suffocating” this season pic.twitter.com/s4ys81sa8z
— NFL on ESPN (@ESPNNFL) September 16, 2025
“I think the word stifflying is good, Mina, I’d also say suffocating,” Orlovsky said. “The odd thing is, it’s a zone defense. There are two real kinds of zone defenses. One zone defense means that the defender gets to a certain spot, covering that spot and having eyes on the quarterback. They play a zone defense that I would say is playing concepts rather than coverage. They don’t really drop to spots; they match routes.”
The Raiders had trouble completing passes and forming any kind of run game against the Chargers. The Bolts’ defense was flying around and not letting the Raiders get into any kind of rhythm. Smith ended 24-43 with a 3.3 yards per pass average. Vegas also only ran the ball at a 3.6 yards per carry average.
If LA can continue this strong defense as they did for all of last season, they will be a serious contender in the AFC.
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