2. Defense shines in win
Harbaugh said it best in his postgame press conference.
"Thank goodness for defense," Harbaugh quipped.
A week after the Raiders put up nearly 400 yards of offense, including 362 passing yards from Geno Smith, the Chargers defense simply swarmed, stymied and stopped the Las Vegas offense all night.
Where to start?
How about the fact that the Raiders didn't score a touchdown and resorted to three field goals despite possessing the ball for nearly 32 minutes.
All in all, the Raiders tallied just 218 yards of offense, with Smith throwing for just 180 yards with three interceptions.
And as that final stat alludes to, the Chargers were all over Smith's passes once they left his hand.
The Bolts racked up 15 total passes defensed Monday night, with Smith completing zero passes on his 11 attempts that went for 10-plus air yards.
In fact, the Chargers defense had seven players — Daiyan Henley, Donte Jackson, James, Tony Jefferson, Tarheeb Still, Tulipulotu and Alohi Gilman — with multiple passes defensed against the Raiders, which tied for the most in a game since the stat was first tracked in 1999.
Henley, Jefferson and Jackson had interceptions for the Chargers.
"We knew who their guys were," Jefferson said. "We knew they could get the engine going, Geno trusts his arm. We had to make sure we stayed back in coverage and plaster because he could scramble.
"There's still some things that we should probably clean up before we move on, Jefferson said. "But I thought we did a good job keeping the roof on top, keeping everything in front of us, no explosives."
James added: "Everybody made plays on the ball. We were running to the ball, made plays on the ball, that's contagious. That's the sign of a good defense."
Harbaugh credited Chargers Defensive Coordinator Jesse Minter and the entire defensive staff for the job they did during the game and leading up to it.
"Jesse called a masterpiece of a game … at times you felt like there was more than 11 out there," Harbaugh said.
He later added: "The defense [were] guardians of victory today. They had our back, our front, our side. It was a tremendous defensive performance."