Joey Bosa and Khalil Mack out to prove they can be NFL’s best defensive duo

Joey Bosa knew immediately. When he rushed the quarterback on the last rep of a joint practice with the Rams, he realized he broke his left hand. The Chargers’ star defensive end had no idea what would happen next.

“A million” thoughts started racing through Bosa’s mind. “Most of them,” he said three weeks later with a surgically repaired hand, “are negative.”

For the Chargers’ supposed new era, the training camp injury felt like unwelcome deja vu. After two injury-plagued seasons, the four-time Pro Bowl player’s health is one of the key components to orchestrating a turnaround in coach Jim Harbaugh’s return to the NFL, because with Bosa next to Khalil Mack, the Chargers have the most formidable edge-rushing duo in the league to anchor a defense trying to bounce back from a 5-12 season.

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“We want to build on them; they’re strengths of our defense,” new defensive coordinator Jesse Minter told reporters during camp. “Let them affect the game, do things that they do really well and let them have their best years that they’ve had and try to let them thrive in our defense.”

Mack is coming off a career year. He recorded 17 sacks with 21 tackles for loss and earned his eighth Pro Bowl appearance in his second season with the Chargers.

Despite his production and feeling healthy as ever entering his 11th season, Mack accepted a pay cut in March. He and Bosa both reworked their contracts amid the team’s salary cap struggles with the belief that they’ll be paid back in full when it comes to what matters.

“I just want to win games,” Bosa said. “I just want to go out there and finally put together one of those seasons as a team that it’s like, we’re serious.”

The Chargers have played one playoff game in the last five years. Instead of building off the 2022 wild-card appearance, they collapsed with eight losses in their last nine games last season. The Chargers were 0-7 in games decided by three or fewer points.

Bosa played in just nine games because of foot, toe, hand and hamstring injuries. Coming off a 2022 season marred by a groin injury that limited him to five games, Bosa cobbled together 6½ sacks with 14 solo tackles last season. When he injured a foot in Week 11, Bosa tearfully covered his face with a towel as he was carted off the field in Green Bay.

Some around the NFL, Bosa said early in camp, might have forgotten about him. Minter hopes the new coaching regime can help the 2016 defensive rookie of the year reintroduce himself.

“I definitely think he’s got a little bit of a prove-it mentality,” Minter said. “Most great ones do, but sometimes it just grows even more when you go through some of your own adversity. So I’m really just excited to get him out there and allow him to do the things that he does really well, and I think that will positively impact our defense.”

The former Michigan coordinator knows about managing fearsome fronts. The Wolverines gave up the fewest yards per game (247) in the country last season en route to a 15-0 record and national championship. The 10.4 points they gave up per game were the fewest for a Big Ten defense since 1903.

And Minter did it without a star. No one on Michigan’s historic defense was a first-team All-American, and only lineman Kris Jenkins, who was drafted in the second round by the Cincinnati Bengals, earned multiple All-American honors.

Minter called having Mack and Bosa “a dream.” The defensive scheme emphasizes getting edge rushers up the field, Bosa said, the Chargers’ four-man front boasting offseason addition Bud Dupree and second-year pro Tuli Tuipulotu.

Tuipulotu, a former star at Lawndale High and USC, flourished as a rookie with increased playing time after Bosa’s injury. He was named to the Pro Football Writers Assn. all-rookie team with 53 tackles and 4½ sacks in 11 starts. Dupree led the Atlanta Falcons with 6½ sacks before arriving in free agency.

Read more: Chargers shore up quarterback room via a trade with the Falcons

The edge rushers lead the way for a defense that also has star power in the secondary with safety Derwin James Jr., and cornerback Asante Samuel Jr., but the group lacks depth. The team added former Tennessee Titans starting defensive back Elijah Molden after camp to boost versatility and competitiveness in the secondary.

The pieces, Bosa said, appear to be coming together. He’s ready to show a final masterpiece.

“It doesn’t really matter how your offseason goes, how good you feel,” Bosa said. “It matters how you play on Sunday.”

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This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.