The Chargers are hitting their stride on offense going into the playoffs

The Los Angeles Chargers' offense is finally hitting its stride at the most important part of the season.

Over the last 10 quarters, the Chargers have scored on 18 of 25 possessions (10 touchdowns, eight field goals). That includes seven straight drives that produced points in Sunday's 34-20 victory over the Las Vegas Raiders that wrapped up the AFC's fifth seed for the Chargers (11-6) and a trip to Houston on Saturday for a wild-card round game.

“If you’re picking a time to peak, this is the time to do it,” offensive coordinator Greg Roman said last week. “I think we've made a lot of strides over the course of the year, and we're starting to see the results of a lot of hard work.”

A big reason for the offensive surge is that the run and pass games are both clicking at the same time.

Justin Herbert passed for 346 yards on Sunday, his first 300-yard game since Oct. 21 at Arizona. Quentin Johnston had career highs in receptions (13) and yards (186). It was also the most receiving yards by a Chargers player since Keenan Allen had 183 against Houston in Week 3 in 2019.

Ladd McConkey finished with 10 straight games of at least 50 receiving yards, breaking the NFL rookie record that Odell Beckham Jr. set with the New York Giants in 2014.

J.K. Dobbins' return has bolstered the run game. The Chargers are averaging 121.8 yards and 4.1 yards per carry with Dobbins in the lineup compared with the 74.8 yards per game and 3.6 yards per carry during the four games he missed because of a knee injury.

The balance on offense has helped Herbert excel on play action. The fifth-year quarterback has a league-high 75.5% completion percentage on play fakes, according to the NFL's Next Gen Stats, including 12 of 12 for 176 yards and a touchdown on Sunday.

“Ideally that’s when we’re at our best offensively. It’s having all those guys and having Ladd on third down, having Q (Johnston) and Dis (tight end Will Dissly) and even the run game we’ve had and putting all those pieces together. When we’re able to do that, we are playing our best football," Herbert said.

The Chargers' next task will be preparing for a Houston defense that allowed the sixth-fewest yards per game (315) and was second in interceptions with 19.

“I think we’re in a good place. The fellas are ready to roll,” said coach Jim Harbaugh, who is headed to the playoffs for the fourth time in his five NFL seasons.

The defense allowed the fewest points in the league (301), the first time the Chargers have done that since 1963 when they were in the American Football League. A big reason for that is they allowed only 18 touchdowns in 40 red-zone possessions. That 45% rate was the best in the league.

The Chargers have allowed 11 passing touchdowns of at least 25 yards, second most in the league. Five have come in the past four games, including a 25-yard score by Las Vegas' Jakobi Meyers during the second quarter on Sunday.

In his first start at left tackle, rookie Joe Alt allowed just one quarterback pressure on 37 pass-blocking snaps, according to Next Gen Stats. Alt moved from right tackle when Rashawn Slater was declared inactive after he felt discomfort in his knee during pregame stretching.

CB Kristian Fulton allowed four receptions for 62 yards, including the TD to Meyers where Fulton bit on a double move. Fulton has been targeted 18 times in the past four games and allowed 15 receptions for 172 yards and two touchdowns.

Slater is slated to have an MRI to determine if there is anything significant about the knee discomfort he experienced in warmups. RB Gus Edwards (ankle), WR Joshua Palmer (foot) and LB Denzel Perryman (groin) were inactive against the Raiders.

3 — Interceptions thrown by Herbert, the second fewest in NFL history by a quarterback with at least 450 pass attempts.

11 — Wins by the Chargers, their most since they had 12 in 2018.

9 — Turnovers committed, the fewest in franchise history and third fewest in NFL history.

The Chargers have not faced the Texans since Week 17 of the 2021 season, a 41-29 loss at Houston. Los Angeles leads the all-time series 5-3 but has dropped three of the past four.

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Los Angeles Chargers head coach Jim Harbaugh speaks at a news conference after an NFL football game against the Las Vegas Raiders in Las Vegas, Sunday, Jan. 5, 2025. (AP Photo/John Locher)

Los Angeles Chargers quarterback Justin Herbert celebrates with fans after an NFL football game against the Las Vegas Raiders in Las Vegas, Sunday, Jan. 5, 2025. (AP Photo/John Locher)

Los Angeles Chargers running back J.K. Dobbins, left, runs against Las Vegas Raiders cornerback Kyu Blu Kelly (36) during the second half of an NFL football game in Las Vegas, Sunday, Jan. 5, 2025. (AP Photo/John Locher)

Los Angeles Chargers tight end Will Dissly (81) celebrates after scoring against the Las Vegas Raiders during the second half of an NFL football game in Las Vegas, Sunday, Jan. 5, 2025. (AP Photo/John Locher)

Los Angeles Chargers quarterback Justin Herbert speaks at a news conference after an NFL football game against the Las Vegas Raiders in Las Vegas, Sunday, Jan. 5, 2025. (AP Photo/John Locher)

President-elect Donald Trump said Tuesday that he would move to try to rename the Gulf of Mexico to the “Gulf of America,” a name he said has a “beautiful ring to it.”

It's his latest suggestion to redraw the map of the Western Hemisphere. Trump has repeatedly referred to Canada as the “51st State,” demanded that Denmark consider ceding Greenland, and called for Panama to return the Panama Canal.

Here's a look at his comment and what goes into a name.

Since his first run for the White House in 2016, Trump has repeatedly clashed with Mexico over a number of issues, including border security and the imposition of tariffs on imported goods. He vowed then to build a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border and make Mexico pay for it. The U.S. ultimately constructed or refurbished about 450 miles of wall during his first term.

The Gulf of Mexico is often referred to as the United States' “Third Coast” due to its coastline across five southeastern states. Mexicans use a Spanish version of the same name for the gulf: “El Golfo de México.”

Americans and Mexicans diverge on what to call another key body of water, the river that forms the border between Texas and the Mexican states of Chihuahua, Coahuila, Nuevo Leon and Tamaulipas. Americans call it the Rio Grande; Mexicans call it the Rio Bravo.

Maybe, but it's not a unilateral decision, and other countries don't have to go along.

The International Hydrographic Organization — of which both the United States and Mexico are members — works to ensure all the world’s seas, oceans and navigable waters are surveyed and charted uniformly, and also names some of them. There are instances where countries refer to the same body of water or landmark by different names in their own documentation.

It can be easier when a landmark or body of water is within a country's boundaries. In 2015, then-President Barack Obama approved an order from the Department of Interior to rename Mount McKinley — the highest peak in North America — to Denali, a move that Trump has also said he wants to reverse.

Just after Trump's comments on Tuesday, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia said during an interview with podcaster Benny Johnson that she would direct her staff to draft legislation to change the name of the Gulf of Mexico, a move she said would take care of funding for new maps and administrative policy materials throughout the federal government.

The body of water has been depicted with that name for more than four centuries, an original determination believed to have been taken from a Native American city of “Mexico.”

Yes. In 2012, a member of the Mississippi Legislature proposed a bill to rename portions of the gulf that touch that state's beaches “Gulf of America,” a move the bill author later referred to as a “joke.” That bill, which was referred to a committee, did not pass.

Two years earlier, comedian Stephen Colbert had joked on his show that, following the massive Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, it should be renamed “Gulf of America” because, "We broke it, we bought it.”

There's a long-running dispute over the name of the Sea of Japan among Japan, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, with South Korea arguing that the current name wasn't commonly used until Korea was under Japanese rule. At an International Hydrographic Organization meeting in 2020, member states agreed on a plan to replace names with numerical identifiers and develop a new digital standard for modern geographic information systems.

The Persian Gulf has been widely known by that name since the 16th century, although usage of “Gulf” and “Arabian Gulf” is dominant in many countries in the Middle East. The government of Iran threatened to sue Google in 2012 over the company's decision not to label the body of water at all on its maps.

There have been other conversations about bodies of water, including from Trump’s 2016 opponent. According to materials revealed by WikiLeaks in a hack of her campaign chairman’s personal account, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in 2013 told an audience that, by China’s logic that it claimed nearly the entirety of the South China Sea, then the U.S. after World War II could have labeled the Pacific Ocean the “American Sea.”

Kinnard reported from Chapin, South Carolina, and can be reached at http://x.com/MegKinnardAP.

President-elect Donald Trump walks from the podium after a news conference at Mar-a-Lago, Tuesday, Jan. 7, 2025, in Palm Beach, Fla. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)