When a team goes 9-7 and misses the playoffs, they usually consider themselves just one player away from making it next season. That one player is hardly ever a kicker, though. But, for the 2017 Los Angeles Chargers and general manager Tom Telesco, that's exactly the case.

Most of the time, a team's kicker is set for the season, with maybe a possible upgrade or training camp competition on the calendar. There is the always the odd mid-season switch or injury replacement, but that's usually the exception.

Once in a blue moon, there is a team cursed by the kicking gods, where they go kicker after kicker during the season. They always seem to lose games by three points or less. The 2014 Detroit Lions were somewhat that kind of team, but you have to stand in awe of this year's Chargers.

See, the Los Angeles Chargers began the season with promising rookie kicker Younghoe Koo. Koo started four games, made 50% of his kicks, and got the boot. His replacement, Nick Novak, lasted a full seven games, going 69%.

After an injury forced Novak to IR, up came Travis Coons, first of his name. He was doing demonstrably better with an 87% success on field goals; however, a missed extra point against the Kansas City sealed his fate.

The Chargers finished the season with Nick Rose at kicker, who started the team's final two games. They might have made one more change, but having missed the playoffs, they ran out of time. So, they ended up with Rose on their roster as the current placekicker (and the placeholder), with the Roberto Aguayo signed to a futures contract.

Telesco, aware of their bungling at the position in 2017, owned the mistakes and promised to fix the situation for next season, as told to Alex Marvez of Sporting News:

“We’ll get that fixed,” Telesco told me on SiriusXM NFL Radio on Thursday. “That was largely my fault. We just didn’t do a very good job managing that situation.”

…

“Unfortunately, late in the year the pool of kickers wasn’t great. But we’ll do a better job of that.”

There are many veteran kickers on the market, and a capable replacement can be had without sacrificing too much cap space.

Here's another solution; go back in time and don't cut Josh Lambo for undrafted rookie Younghoe Koo.

Lambo, after casting a curse on the Chargers, went on to join the Jacksonville Jaguars after Week 6. He went 19 out of 20 for the Jags, and they played in the AFC Championship game. He even kicked the winning field goal in overtime in Week 10. You know against whom.

The kicking gods are really something.