Chargers general manager on the Super Bowl champion Chiefs: ‘We have to beat them’
Kansas City fans hear this from NFL pundits seemingly each summer: the Chargers are poised to end the Chiefs’ reign atop the AFC West.
Then the regular season begins, and the Chiefs win the division, as they’ve done for the past seven years.
In an interview with ESPN’s Lindsey Thiry, Chargers general manager Tom Telesco admitted his team needs to get past the Chiefs this season.
“You like to be a little bit more on the offensive and ‘Hey, this is how we’re going to play and this is how teams have to stop us,’” Telesco said before adding: “But you can’t help but to see the Super Bowl champions in our division. We have to beat them.”
The Chargers are 3-7 against the Chiefs since quarterback Patrick Mahomes became the starter. And one of those victories came in the 2020 regular-season finale when Mahomes and many of the Chiefs starters were rested.
Each of those three victories has come at GEHA Field at Arrowhead Stadium, and Mahomes is 5-0 in games in the Chargers’ stadium.
The last four meetings between the Chiefs and Chargers have been decided by one score.
Telesco was asked if he builds the Chargers’ roster to beat everyone in the NFL or the Chiefs. It’s the former, as you would expect, but Telesco admitted he’s also cognizant of the Chiefs.
“You talk about both because you want to balance it,” Telesco told Thiry. “You don’t want to be a team that’s just building to beat one other team and forget that we got to play the way we think we need to play to win, to beat the other teams in the division and everybody else that we play.”
