The Los Angeles Chargers open Jim Harbaugh’s second season at home Sunday against the Arizona Cardinals, and the number next to the game is the kind that gets attention. The Chargers are favored by 9.5 points, the largest spread of Week 1, when the teams meet at SoFi Stadium at 1:25 p.m.
That is why fans are searching for Cardinals Vs Chargers now: the matchup is immediate, it is on Sunday, and it comes with a line that says one team is expected to control the afternoon. In Southern California, the game will be on CBS and Paramount+, and it will be available nationally through NFL Sunday Ticket on YouTube TV. Fans in the area can also listen on 640 AM and 103.9 FM (Español).
Harbaugh has built his reputation on fast starts, and his numbers back it up. He is 6-0 in NFL season debuts as a head coach, including four seasons with San Francisco, a run that is tied for the most opening victories without a loss in league history. That kind of start is part of why this opener carries extra weight: the Chargers are expected to win comfortably, but Harbaugh’s standard is not just to win Week 1. It is to set a tone that holds up in January.
The Cardinals arrive in a very different place. They opened last season 2-0, then lost 14 of their next 15 games, a collapse that explains why they are underdogs again even in the first week of a new year. Kyler Murray is now in Minnesota, Jacoby Brissett is on his sixth franchise, or seventh if two stops in New England are counted, and Mike LaFleur is coaching his first game for Arizona. The Cardinals also used the third overall pick on Notre Dame running back Jeremiyah Love, though he is questionable because of an ankle injury.
There is injury uncertainty on both sides. The Cardinals will be without Isisah Adams, Dadrion Taylor-Demerson and Garrett Williams, while the Chargers will be without Deane Leonard and may not have Tuli Tuipulotu. Just as notable, Mike McDaniel is making his debut as Chargers offensive coordinator, which gives Justin Herbert a new structure on offense rather than simply a new voice. Herbert shares an apartment with his older brother, Mitch, an orthopedic surgery resident, and the quarterback enters the opener as the face of a team that is supposed to look sharper, cleaner and more complete from the first snap.
Sam Farmer picked the Chargers to win 27-20, a margin that would still leave the spread in play. But the bigger test is not whether Los Angeles can be competitive; it is whether it can meet the standard attached to a 9.5-point favorite and a coach whose teams have usually started fast and kept going. Sunday will answer that immediately.
