The Tampa Bay Buccaneers hand the Los Angeles Chargers an ugly defeat

INGLEWOOD, Calif. – The Los Angeles Chargers need to quickly move on from an ugly Week 15 performance that angered members of the defense.

“This (expletive) cannot happen again. This is unacceptable,” Chargers linebacker Daiyan Henley told USA TODAY Sports. “We just weren’t at our level. So what went wrong is that we just didn’t meet our standard, be it a mindset, a feeling of energy or whatever, we just didn’t maintain our standard. And that was really it.”

After a dominant second-half surge, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers rolled over the Chargers 40-17. Tampa Bay scored 27 unanswered points in the second half after trailing 17-13 at halftime. The 40 points are the most points given up by the Chargers’ strongest defense all season.

Bucs quarterback Baker Mayfield passed for 288 yards, four touchdowns and one interception. Mayfield’s four touchdowns tied a season high. Two of Mayfield’s touchdown passes were caught by star wide receiver Mike Evans, who had a season-high nine catches, 159 receiving yards and two touchdowns. Bucs running back Bucky Irving managed 117 of Tampa Bay’s 222 yards on the ground.

“Plays like that make you a little angry,” Chargers outside linebacker Khalil Mack said. “Just understand what we want to do as a group. It wasn’t nearly like that. But kudos to them, kudos to the Bucs.”

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The Chargers’ four-point halftime lead quickly disappeared into the Pacific Ocean in what turned out to be a one-sided second half. Mayfield and the Bucs offense scored on five straight possessions in the second half. Conversely, the Chargers’ offense struggled to extend drives and gain first downs. Tampa Bay outgained Los Angeles 304 to 64 yards in the second half. The Chargers finished the entire contest 0-6 on third down.

“We didn’t play well enough (and) we didn’t coach well enough,” Chargers coach Jim Harbaugh said. “It was pretty thorough, very thorough. Now we face this adversity. This is how we respond.”

Chargers quarterback Justin Herbert completed 21 of 33 passes for 195 yards to go with two touchdowns, and he threw his first interception since Week 2, ending his 11-game streak without a pick.

“It’s tough,” Herbert said. “We got beat (Sunday). We were badly beaten. We must do everything we can to learn from this and not allow this to affect our next one.”

Los Angeles must quickly recover from the heavy defeat. The team hosts the Denver Broncos on Thursday night in an AFC battle with big playoff implications.

The Broncos, who defeated the Indianapolis Colts 31-13 on Sunday, are currently in sixth place in the AFC, and the Chargers occupy the seventh and final spot in the AFC playoff race. The Week 16 winner will control the tiebreaker and also own the sixth seed with just two regular season games remaining.

Los Angeles still controls its own playoff fate. According to NFL Next Gen Stats, they have an 87% chance of reaching the postseason. But the Chargers will have to go back to the drawing board and react quickly if they want to secure a postseason berth in Harbaugh’s first year as head coach.

“What do we want this season? It’s a quote, not a quotation, a reconstruction. But we are never satisfied with that. For us that means we want to get into a playoff position and we have to do that now. We have the opportunity,” Henley said. “We have three winnable games and a conference opponent in front of us.”

Follow USA TODAY Sports’ Tyler Dragon on X @TheTylerDragon.

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The Tampa Bay Buccaneers hand the Los Angeles Chargers an ugly defeat

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