by Rivers McCown
The 2017 Chargers were easily one of the AFC's best six teams. They were one of two teams in the conference (along with Pittsburgh) that had a top-12 DVOA on offense and on defense. They did not make the playoffs on account of abysmal special teams play and, to use a general term that I've seen more than once, "Some Chargers Shit." The only team to beat them by more than one score was the Chiefs, to whom they turned the ball over seven times in the two games they met.
So it was not a huge stretch of the imagination to consider that the 2018 Chargers would be good.