Chargers Prepare for Denver’s Snowballs

This has been a special week of preparation for the Chargers’ special teams, who must contend with Denver’s Abominable Snowfan come Sunday afternoon.

Through the years, field goals have been missed because of lunging linebackers, blitzing safeties and towering linemen--but never because of a snowball.

It happened, of course, on Monday night. A splattering snowball distracted San Francisco holder Matt Cavanaugh and aborted a field-goal attempt of “gimme” distance by Ray Wersching. Cavanaugh attempted to throw a pass, but it turned out that the Abominable Snowfan had a more accurate arm.

Since the final score favored Denver by a mere 17-16, the snowball figured prominently in the outcome. And it could figure prominently in the final standings in both western divisions of the National Football League.

“It directly influenced San Francisco,” Charger Coach Don Coryell said this week, “and it indirectly influenced us. Heck, it could directly influence us.”

Indeed, Denver would be in a three-way tie for first in the AFC West with Seattle and Los Angeles had it lost Monday night, and the Chargers would have been one game back. As it is, Denver leads by a game over the Raiders and Seahawks and two games over the Chargers.

For the 49ers, hopes of making the playoffs may well have splattered with that snowball. They desperately needed a win to stay within striking distance of the Rams, but the aborted field-goal attempt denied them.

Is this any way to decide the outcome of a football game or season?

“There’s no question that that play should have been run over,” Coryell said. “What happened was no fault of the offense, or the defense, either. An outside force disrupted play and likely cost San Francisco the football game.”

Coryell initially suggested that the play should have been stopped when the snowball hit, but conceded it probably all happened too quickly.

“It still should have been replayed,” he said. “It was crowd interference, just like if a fan ran out onto the field. What’s the difference? It could have been a snowball or a bottle or anything. It was terrible.”

Snowballs are a little difficult to monitor in Denver. The fans can hardly be searched for snowballs on their way into the stadium. They don’t have to sneak them past security personnel in coolers. Mile High Stadium comes equipped with all the ingredients the Abominable Snowfan needs to do his unsportsmanlike deeds.

Should this incident be considered just another manifestation of the home-field advantage? Are you kidding? In Detroit, they’d be throwing carburetors--probably burning carburetors. The Chargers’ poor fans would have a tough time blocking a field goal with a beach ball.

It is obvious that something must be done to deter outside influences such as the Abominable Snowfan.

“The National Football League should address this in a dynamic fashion,” said Marv Braden, the Chargers’ special teams coach. “It has to be controlled so that players on the field are not affected by outside substances.”

Baseball rules already address fans who interfere with balls in play. Umpires use their discretion to determine what would have been the outcome of a play had the fan in question kept to himself.

In the case of the aborted field-goal attempt, it would have been a bit presumptuous to assume a successful kick--but totally fair to call for another attempt.

Coryell is also opinionated on another area of “fan interference” that happens to be prevalent in Denver. Let’s call it air pollution. The pollutant is excessive noise, which occasionally makes it impossible for the visiting team to hear the quarterback call signals.

“I’m very alarmed by it,” Coryell said. “I think they just have to do something about it. They say they’re not going to penalize the crowd unless the home team doesn’t try to quiet the crowd, but it still may have to come to that.”

An alternative, Coryell said, would be to equip the quarterback with an amplifier so his voice could be heard over the crowd.

“The noise certainly hurt us in Seattle,” Coryell said. “We got penalties and we got sacks because the linemen couldn’t hear the signals. And we couldn’t call audibles. The home team has a great advantage.”

In the indoor din in Seattle, the Chargers were 26-21 losers.

And Denver is almost as bad, though there is no dome to bounce the sound onto the field. Of course, the absence of a dome puts that other factor into play.

The Abominable Snowfan.

“I think Cavanaugh was distracted more because he was surprised,” said Ralf Mojsiejenko, the punter who doubles as a holder on Charger field-goal attempts. “I hope if it happens to me, I’ll still get the snap clean and get the ball down.”

The Chargers are preparing for Denver’s Abominable Snowfan. They don’t have any snow handy on their practice field, but they are doing the best they can to simulate white blurs coming at Mojsiejenko and kicker Bob Thomas.

They are throwing balled up white socks at them.