In mid-October, Anthony Lynn began a post-game press conference in Cleveland with a sentence he hadn’t often had occasion to use in his first 22 months as Chargers head coach.
“Well,” Lynn said, “we made all of our damn kicks.”
That afternoon, in a 38-14 win against the Browns, the Chargers had their seventh player in two years attempt a field goal or extra point. The team had endured a stretch of unluck at the position that seemed straight out of Greek mythology. In 2017, the Chargers cycled through Younghoe Koo, Nick Novak, Travis Coons and Nick Rose, plus punter Drew Kaser tried a few extra points after Novak exited a game early with a back injury.