EL SEGUNDO, Calif. -- A month after the Los Angeles Chargers finished one of their most embarrassing seasons in recent memory, which resulted in the firing of their head coach and general manager, the team was ridiculed again by way of an NFLPA Survey.
The second annual "report card" -- which ranks teams according to various categories based on the results of player surveys -- was released by the NFLPA in February and ranked the Chargers among the worst teams in the NFL in multiple categories, including food/cafeteria (31st), training room (30th), weight room (29th) and locker room (27th).
The survey reflected life for the Chargers in their temporary home in Orange County, where the team has been since they moved from San Diego in 2017. The team broke ground on their new home in 2022, so many in the organization didn't put much thought into the survey, but the low grades bothered some players, including outside linebacker Joey Bosa.
"It may not be the best setup, but they'll prepare you food that's plenty good," Bosa said. "They may not have the best means back there, but they freaking work their butts off, and that survey is not cool, man."
On Thursday, five months after that survey, the Chargers revealed their new facility in El Segundo, Calif., named "The Bolt." It's the first NFL training facility and headquarters in LA, equipped with a new food partnership with Wolfgang Puck catering; a catering partnership so enticing that Bosa said he might consider no longer using his long-time chef.
As the Chargers put some of the final touches on the building this year, chief of staff Fred Maas said he kept the NFLPA survey in mind, though it wasn't something that "drove" them.
"Well, I paid a lot of attention to it," he said. "We also knew that we were constrained by the building that we were stuck with and the circumstances we were stuck with. And we always wanted to build a world-class facility irrespective of what the ratings were. Frankly, I was surprised we did as well as we did. We were 31st of the 32 teams. So it's not surprising given the circumstances."
The Bolt spans 150,000 square feet, and the entrance features the Chargers' version of the Hollywood Walk of Fame, honoring each member of the team's hall of fame in Terrazzo tiles.
Maas is confident that the Chargers have addressed and upgraded all the issues raised in the survey in their new facility. The cafeteria features a pizza oven painted to appear as a Chargers helmet, a weight room that has an indoor and outdoor space, and a locker room that almost doubles the size of the old space and includes a lounge area.
The helmet shaped pizza oven in the cafeteria pic.twitter.com/e86o0OtCnC
— Kris Rhim (@krisrhim1) July 11, 2024
When they officially broke ground on the facility in 2022, the Chargers were planning for the Brandon Staley and Tom Telesco regime, but after the team hired general manager Joe Hoertiz and coach Jim Harbaugh in February, some plans shifted to suit what the staff preferred. Most of the changes were nominal, including whiteboards in certain rooms or certain position coaches in specific areas.
For strength and conditioning coach Ben Herbert, Maas said the Chargers bought 50 percent of the weight room to meet Herbert's standards.
"He has certain -- it's one of the things I love about him -- certain requirements and criteria for sports and performance, and how he teaches the players and how he educates them," Maas said with a smile.
Maas is in the process of upgrading the weight room's "delivery systems," which will help Herbert better use TVs for video and performance data.
The process for finding and building a facility took the Chargers almost a decade, Maas said, because of the space they needed and the Charger's "non-negotiables," which included three grass fields.
The priority for the three grass fields, Maas said, was partly for coaches to have the space to segregate offense, defense and special teams, grass being the safest surface for players and the flexibility to rotate and change fields in the event of damage.
The facility puts a figurative bow on the Chargers' move from San Diego seven years ago and begins a new chapter for this franchise as they look to compete with a high-profile and ambitious coach in Harbaugh.
That journey starts in earnest in the coming weeks when rookies report on Jul. 16 and veterans on Jul. 24.
In the meantime, Maas is still putting the finishing touches on "The Bolt."
"Being very frank, if the camp wasn't coming up here pretty quick, I would've liked to have another month," he said, "But that'll all come. The meat and bones of the building are ready to roll. We're ready for camp."