Harbaugh

If the Chargers were a home, general manager Joe Hortiz and coach Jim Harbaugh are in agreement: its foundation is set in stone.

The team is going to continue to build its offense around quarterback Justin Herbert, that much is clear. But as the renovation begins — with Harbaugh parting ways with offensive coordinator Greg Roman and offensive line coach Mike Devlin earlier this week — the Chargers coach said Thursday he knows that growth is necessary after back-to-back years of first-round playoff exits.

Hortiz concurred with his longtime colleague.

“That’s what the offseason is for; time to look at things internally and look externally to see how you can get better,” said Hortiz, who is wrapping up his second season with the organization alongside Harbaugh. “You’ve got a nice structure, and that’s what we have here. But we’re going to keep renovating every room. And right when you get done with the bathrooms, you go to the kitchen. But you know what? You can’t ignore the bathroom.” Hortiz added: “You can’t focus all your attention on one room and let the other ones fall too.”

The duo avoided placing blame on Herbert’s trend of postseason woes, offensive line construction or Roman, a similar retread of talking points from last year’s post-hoc presser of vague talking points.

Hortiz made one thing clear: He won’t consider any season a success until the Chargers claim their first Super Bowl title.

“Did we do Justin a disservice or whatever word you want to put it?” Hortiz said. “We weren’t good enough and our goal was to be good enough. I did [team owner] Dean [Spanos] a disservice. I did coach a disservice. We all did, all of us together. We want to win the Super Bowl, and so we’ve got to get better.”

That begins with finding a new “head coach of the offense,” Harbaugh said. Under Roman, the Chargers only scored one touchdown across two playoff games.

“A fresh start, a new direction,” Harbaugh said of his reasoning to fire Roman. “Fresh start for [Roman], fresh start for our team, for our offense.”

Harbaugh said he hopes to bring in a new offensive coordinator with a “physical” identity. Hortiz adding that the job — especially coaching Herbert — is an “attractive position,” and that they’ll plan on bringing in the best possible candidate to work alongside Harbaugh, casting a wide net.

Chargers passing game coordinator Marcus Brady was first to interview for the offensive coordinator job, meeting with assistant general manager Chad Alexander, Hortiz and Harbaugh on Thursday.

Outside of Roman and Devlin, Hortiz announced that linebackers coach NaVorro Bowman is departing the Chargers and coaching altogether. Bowman, who played for Harbaugh when he coached the San Francisco 49ers, is planning to help his son, Notre Dame High junior guard NaVorro Bowman Jr., navigate the college recruitment process, Hortiz said.

Outside of coaching personnel changes — which could include defensive coordinator Jesse Minter departing for a head coaching job — Hortiz said he wants to use some of the more than $100 million in projected salary-cap space to retain some of the Chargers’ pending free agents.

Outside linebackers Odafe Oweh and Khalil Mack (who said this week that he’d contemplate retirement for the second consecutive season), wide receiver Keenan Allen and left guard Zion Johnson are set to become free agents in March. Hortiz said he hadn’t talked with wide receiver Quentin Johnston and his representation about whether they would pick up his fifth-year option.

“We have to be smart,” Hortiz said. “We’ll spend money, but we’re going to spend money internally too, because there’s a lot of guys we’d like to have back.”

Denzel Perryman quickly listed name after name as he dove deep into his mental roster of the 2015 Chargers.

Manti Teʻo, Melvin Ingram, Kavell Conner and Donald Butler took Perryman under their wing, the Chargers linebacker said. The 11-year veteran said he relied on older teammates when he entered the NFL as they helped him adjust to the schedule and regimen of professional football.

“When I was a young guy,” Perryman said, “my head was all over the place — just trying to get the gist of the NFL. They taught me how to be where my mind is.”

With the Chargers (10-4) entering the final stretch of the season and on the cusp of clinching a playoff berth heading into Sunday’s game against the Dallas Cowboys (6-7-1), veterans have played an important role in the team winning six of its last seven games.

A win over the Cowboys coupled with either a loss or tie by the Houston Texans on Sunday afternoon or an Indianapolis Colts loss or tie on Monday night would secure a playoff berth for the Chargers.

Perryman, who recorded a season-best nine tackles in the Chargers’ win over the Kansas City Chiefs last week, credits Philip Rivers and the rest of the Chargers’ veterans for showing him “how to be a pro” a decade ago. Now he’s passing along those lessons to younger players in a transfer of generational knowledge across the Chargers’ locker room.

“When I came in as a young guy, I thought this happens every year,” safety Derwin James Jr. said of winning, starting his career on a 12-4 Chargers team in 2018. “Remember the standard. Remember, whatever we’re doing now, to uphold the standard, so that way, when guys change, coaches change, anything changes, the standard remains.”

Running off the field at Arrowhead Stadium, third-year safety Daiyan Henley charged at a celebrating Tony Jefferson, a veteran mentor at his position who was waiting for teammates after being ejected for an illegal hit on Chiefs wide receiver Tyquan Thornton.

After the game Jefferson and Henley hopped around like schoolchildren on the playground. That’s the atmosphere the veterans want to create, Jefferson said, one in which younger players in the secondary can turn to him.

“That’s what we’re here for,” Jefferson said. “For them to watch us and follow, follow our lead, and see how we do our thing.”

It’s not just the veteran stars that are making a difference. Marcus Williams, a 29-year-old safety with 109 games of NFL experience, replaced Jefferson against the Chiefs after being elevated from the practice squad. The 2017 second-round pick played almost every snap in Jefferson’s place, collecting four tackles.

“That just starts with the culture coach [Jim] Harbaugh creates,” defensive coordinator Jesse Minter said. “It’s really a 70-man roster.”

Harbaugh highlighted defensive lineman/fullback Scott Matlock’s blocking technique — a ba-boop, ba-boop, as Harbaugh put it and mimed with his arms — on designed runs as an example of a veteran bolstering an offensive line trying to overcome the absence of Joe Alt and Rashawn Slater.

Harbaugh said his father, Jack, taught Matlock the ba-boop, ba-boop blocking technique during an August practice.

“He’s severely underrated as an athlete,” quarterback Justin Herbert said of the 6-foot-4, 296-pound Matlock, who also catches passes in the flat as a fullback.

With three games left in the regular season, Jefferson said the focus is on replicating the postseason-like efforts they gave in consecutive wins over the Chiefs and Philadelphia Eagles.

“It was good that they were able to get a taste of that,” Jefferson said of his younger teammates playing against last season’s Super Bowl teams, “because these games down the stretch are really what’s to come in the playoffs.”