CBS Sports' Spero Dedes was this week's guest on the Backstage: Chargers Podcast presented by Toyota.
Dedes, who is also the preseason television voice of the Chargers, will be on the call for Los Angeles' regular season finale against the Denver Broncos. Highlights from the conversation are below:
Anthony Lynn's impact on the Chargers' locker room (2:05):
"As a player, these guys look at their head coach and any kind of fakeness or a lack of authenticity is going to be an issue in any NFL locker room. I think when you look at Anthony Lynn's past, kind of a blue-collar player. … He waited so long to earn his chance to be a head coach, paid his dues as an assistant, kind of banged around and really had to wait his turn and finally to get into this role, I think that resonates with a group of men in the NFL. When Anthony Lynn gets up in front of the group, he's a man of few words in some ways and I just think his personality, the innate toughness that he brings into an NFL locker room I think really rubs off on a team and this team has really taken on his personality. It didn't take long for that to happen."
What the Chargers need to do to make a run in January (13:10):
"The one thing that we see in the postseason is that at some point, you're going to have to fight adversity, because we go into these matchups, we try to predict what's going to happen and there always seems to be something that flips the script and, to me, the teams that are able to make deep postseason runs are the teams that are able to perform in the pressurized moments where you need to make a play. We've seen it year in and year out from Tom Brady in New England. We've seen it from the teams that are perennial threats at this time of year. And the Chargers – there are very few teams that have more talent than the Chargers have on paper and on the field. To me, it's just those moments where they have to make a play."
Subscribe to the Backstage: Chargers Podcast presented by Toyota on Apple Podcasts. A five-star rating/review is appreciated and will help spread the word to other fans during the regular season. The Backstage: Chargers Podcast posts each Tuesday and is also available on Stitcher, TuneIn or Google Play.
