Jim Harbaugh simply acquired completed high-fiving all of his gamers. He saved a particular greeting for Joe Hortiz.
Within the fast aftermath of the Chargers clinching their first playoff berth since 2022, the coach wrapped the overall supervisor in a good, two-armed hug within the New England Patriots locker room.
“Love you!” Harbaugh shouted at Hortiz with each palms on Hortiz’s shoulders. They embraced once more.
Harbaugh’s affect has been the headline because the Chargers have tried to ditch their popularity of mediocrity. The eccentric coach would like his gamers get the credit score for altering the group’s tradition.
Then there’s Hortiz, the person who labored behind the scenes to hand-pick the gamers behind the crew’s first 11-win season since 2018.
“He takes no deep, long bows, but he should,” Harbaugh stated. “He should take a very deep, long bow for just how good he is and what he’s been able to do with this team.”
The Chargers — who face No. 4 seed Houston in an AFC wild-card sport Saturday at 1:30 p.m. PST — accomplished the franchise’s finest single-season turnaround since 2004, going from 5 wins final season to 11 within the first yr of the Harbaugh period. Hortiz, who earned the nickname “Chef Hortiz” for the way in which he cooks up strikes, navigated troublesome wage constraints to show over the roster.
He stored foundational gamers and restructured contracts for outdoor linebackers Khalil Mack and Joey Bosa. He added veterans who every had one thing to show. He drafted younger gamers who didn’t simply have future potential however introduced fast affect.
Throughout all of the teams, the entrance workplace ensured everybody shared a typical high quality.
“Everybody’s just, like, fighters,” security Tony Jefferson stated. “We strain to the last moment, the last play.”
Jefferson noticed Hortiz’s front-office affect up shut final season. The 32-year-old was working as a scouting assistant for the Baltimore Ravens, with whom Hortiz spent the earlier 26 seasons working from personnel assistant as much as director of participant personnel.
One of many early steps for first-year Chargers common supervisor Joe Hortiz was to view the school expertise on the NFL mix in Indianapolis.
(Michael Conroy / Related Press)
Working for a company that has set the usual for consistency with 15 seasons at .500 or higher within the final 17 seasons, Jefferson routinely heard DeCosta preach the significance of by no means getting too excessive or too low. The ten-year skilled now sees Hortiz apply the lesson day by day as he scours the league to search out any addition who may enhance the roster by any fraction.
“He wants guys not to get comfortable at all,” cornerback Kristian Fulton stated. “You see that just with the roster moves that they make year round.”
Days earlier than the Chargers’ playoff opener, the crew added former All-Professional operating again Ezekiel Elliott to the follow squad. Quarterback Justin Herbert marveled on the transfer. He didn’t even understand groups may do this.
“I’m thankful for those guys,” Herbert stated.
Hortiz, with assistant common supervisor Chad Alexander and senior director of professional personnel Louis Clark, has stored the roster in fixed churn. Hours after setting the preliminary 53-man roster, the Chargers traded for backup quarterback Taylor Heinicke.
That very same week, they claimed operating again Hassan Haskins off waivers and traded for defensive again Elijah Molden. All three have performed significant snaps for the Chargrs this season with Molden rising as a starter in a breakout season earlier than fracturing a fibula in Week 17.
Hortiz works with Harbaugh on any potential strikes, popping his head into Harbaugh’s workplace to request that the coach take a look at a participant’s movie or weigh in on an thought already ruminating inside the entrance workplace. Hortiz has the ultimate name, and Harbaugh hasn’t had any motive to object.
“It should be a TED Talk, his leadership style,” Harbaugh stated on the acronym for know-how, leisure and design. “But that’s what it is: pulls the best out of everybody and makes you want to give your best.”
Having already labored with Harbaugh’s older brother, John Harbaugh, in Baltimore. Hortiz referred to as Jim “a brother.”
They shared a DNA of success. Harbaugh engineered turnarounds in any respect of his earlier head teaching spots — from the College of San Diego to Stanford, the San Francisco 49ers and, most lately, Michigan.
The connection between two of the crew’s prime resolution makers constructed a gradual basis for potential free brokers on the lookout for alternatives this offseason.
“Joe Hortiz and coach Harbaugh coming from where they came from,” stated Fulton, who signed as a free agent from the Tennessee Titans. “I won my whole life, and I wanted to surround myself around winners.”
A former nationwide champion at Louisiana State, Fulton is having the best-rated season of his profession, in line with Professional Soccer Focus. After balky hamstrings saddled him with an injury-prone label, Fulton has set profession highs for tackles (51) and video games performed (15).
Fulton is considered one of six free brokers at present on the Chargers lively roster who signed one-year offers to assist flip the crew’s fortunes rapidly. Hortiz aced his first draft with beginning proper sort out Joe Alt, second-round gem Ladd McConkey and fifth-round defensive backs Cam Hart and Tarheeb Nonetheless.
The brand new gamers mixed with returning gamers who’ve taken main steps ahead.
Daiyan Henley referred to as himself a “leftover” after the previous third-round draft choose was relegated to the bench beneath the earlier coaches. The second-year linebacker now leads the Chargers with 142 tackles and is the one participant within the league to have at the least 120 tackles and greater than seven passes damaged up this season.
With practically half of its beginning lineup in its first season with the crew, Hortiz ensured the brand new period of the Chargers extends to nearly all ranges. Most significantly on the sphere.
“Let’s get rid of that ‘Chargering’ thing,” Henley stated. “Let’s make it a different team name, because this team right here is fighting to be better. The culture being built is to propel us into the future.”
