Jim Harbaugh Had Never Started a Season 0-2 as a Head Coach. He Just Did It Against the Easy Part of the Schedule
Two 26-14 losses to teams expected to finish near the bottom, and the next six opponents include five 2025 playoff teams and Patrick Mahomes. The soft stretch was the time to bank wins — and in retirement, early losses hurt more, because withdrawals lock them in.
By Sean Anees Saifi · Capital Wealth · Published Friday, September 25, 2026 · Source: The Wall Street Journal, Tuesday, September 22, 2026 edition, whose market figures are the Monday, September 21 close (Sports)
Key Points
The Los Angeles Chargers lost 26-14 to the Las Vegas Raiders on Sunday, a week after losing 26-14 to the Arizona Cardinals — two teams that managed six wins between them last season.
It’s the first 0-2 start of Jim Harbaugh’s head-coaching career. His Chargers won 11 games in each of his first two seasons and made the playoffs both years, and he has never had a losing season as an NFL coach.
The next six: the Bills, Seahawks, Broncos, Chiefs, Rams and Texans — five 2025 playoff teams plus Patrick Mahomes’s Chiefs. Buffalo has scored 77 points in two games.
What’s broken: new offensive coordinator Mike McDaniel’s attack looks out of sync, Justin Herbert has been sacked three times in each game and was pressured on nearly half his dropbacks against the Raiders, and Sunday brought six fumbles.
Harbaugh built his name on turnarounds: Stanford went from a one-win program to 12-1 in his final season, the 49ers went 13-3 in his debut after eight straight years without a winning record, and Michigan won its first national title since 1997.
0-2
Harbaugh’s first such start as a head coach
26-14
the final score of both losses, a week apart
6
combined wins last year for the two teams that beat them
5 of 6
upcoming opponents that made the 2025 playoffs
Two decades of khakis, milk and turnarounds, and never an 0-2 start — until this September.
In one line: The Chargers spent the soft part of their schedule losing and now have to win against the hard part — retirement’s version is sequence risk, where losses in the first years of withdrawals hurt more because selling to live on locks them in.
Jim Harbaugh has been gloriously strange for his entire head-coaching life — the khakis, the side gig as a Supreme Court scholar, the ruling that steak counts as a daily vitamin. Through all of it, one thing held: his teams won. Then came September. His Los Angeles Chargers lost 26-14 to the Arizona Cardinals, then lost 26-14 again to the Las Vegas Raiders, two teams that managed six wins between them last season. It’s the first 0-2 start of Harbaugh’s head-coaching career.
And it doesn’t get easier. The next six opponents are the Bills, Seahawks, Broncos, Chiefs, Rams and Texans — five 2025 playoff teams plus the one with Patrick Mahomes at quarterback — and Buffalo has scored 77 points in two games. The Chargers’ own problems are everywhere: new offensive coordinator Mike McDaniel’s scheme looks out of sync, and the offensive line, billed as a strength, has let Justin Herbert get sacked three times in each game, with pressure on nearly half his dropbacks against the Raiders. On one short-yardage third down, the snap hit a receiver who was in motion. Sunday also brought six fumbles.
A turnaround man, turned around
This is a coach with a turnaround résumé. He inherited a Stanford program coming off a one-win season and went 12-1 in his last year there, took over a 49ers team that hadn’t had a winning year in eight and went 13-3 in his debut, then brought Michigan its first national title since 1997. The Chargers won 11 games in each of his first two seasons, and he’s never had a losing season as an NFL coach. His response to 0-2 was pure Harbaugh: “We’ll go back to work,” he said, adding that it’s the only thing he knows how to do.
Our read
The Chargers’ problem isn’t just two losses; it’s which two. The winnable games are spent, so whatever margin they need now has to come against the hard part of the schedule. Retirement has its own early-loss trap, and planners call it sequence risk (M10). Two retirees can earn the same average return and end up in very different places, because a bad market in the first years — while withdrawals are running — forces shares to be sold low, and those shares aren’t around for the rebound. It’s the withdrawals that lock the losses in: for a portfolio with nothing going in or out, a bad year early and a bad year late end in the same place.
The defense is to bank the easy yards before the first withdrawal, while a paycheck still covers the bills: set aside the first few years of spending in short, safe paper, so a bad opening stretch doesn’t force a sale. Our desk’s Friday close had three-month Treasury bills at 4.24%, so that cushion gets paid while it waits. Nobody gets to pick the order of their opponents. Harbaugh goes back to work in Week 3; a retiree who goes back to work should do it by choice, not because the schedule made the call.
What It Means For Your Portfolio
Hold — bank the easy yards before the first withdrawal
No portfolio action — the lesson is sequence: once withdrawals begin, the order of returns matters, not just the average, because selling in a slump locks the loss in, so the first years of retirement spending deserve a cushion that doesn’t depend on the market.
General planning principles, not advice for anyone in particular. Anyone within a few years of retiring should know how many years of withdrawals could be covered without selling stocks, and where that money sits. A cushion in short-term, high-quality paper can turn a bad opening stretch into an inconvenience instead of a forced sale.
Build it before the first withdrawal, not after the first loss. Flexible spending rules — trimming withdrawals after a down year — help too, and they’re a lot easier to agree to before the season starts than at 0-2. If the first withdrawal is on the calendar, that’s a fifteen-minute conversation worth having before kickoff.
