Chargers’ Super Bowl Shuttle: Substitution Scheme Dazzles

Didn’t you feel just a little bit sorry for the Miami Dolphin defense? After all, these were grown men under the direction of grown men, and the poor fellows looked so confused.

Indeed, what the Chargers do offensively does look very confusing.

On one play, Gary Anderson and Tim Spencer would be aligned in the backfield, tight end Kellen Winslow would be a wide receiver and wide receivers Charlie Joiner and Trumaine Johnson would be split or flanked to the side. This play would work, as most of them did, and this group would retreat to the sideline.

And then I would find Lionel James and Buford McGee in the backfield, Pete Holohan in tight at tight end and Joiner split to the side with Wes Chandler. This play too would work, and McGee, Holohan and Joiner would depart to be replaced by Anderson, Winslow and Spencer.

Is this what might come to be known as a Super Bowl Shuttle?

It is certainly confusing to defenses, which do considerable situation substituting according to which offensive players are on the field. The Chargers’ offensive substitution patterns must be enough to cause opposing defensive coordinators to throw up their hands in dismay . . . or surrender.

Figuring that the Charger roster is populated by three tight ends, three wide receivers and four running backs, I went to work with a legal pad and calculated that they can put 198 different combinations of these so-called skilled players on the field. Understand that this is merely a reflection of combinations of players and not a study of how they are mixed and utilized in terms of formations and motion.

Obviously, it is easy to see how the defense might be confused.

However, it strikes me that it also must be very easy for the offense to get confused. But it just does not seem to happen.

Baffled as to the smoothness with which this operation functions, I consulted Ernie Zampese. He is the Chargers’ offensive coordinator, and one of the foremost among the diabolical minds that perpetrate this evil on opposing defenses.

Though he was just coming out of a meeting, Zampese reacted almost as if I had just awakened him. What seemed cosmic to me was all in a day’s work to this man.

Yawn, what is so complicated about running a play?

Really, Ernie, what is so easy about it? Doesn’t Dan Fouts ever look in the huddle and discover he has two wide receivers, the receptionist, two water boys and nary a tight end or a running back in sight?

In that 50-28 victory over Miami Sunday, not a whole lot of anything went wrong.

“That game,” Zampese said, “was unbelievable. We hit some things good. Everything good that could happen happened Sunday.”

In the past, though, didn’t the fellows ever get confused about who was supposed to be on the field?

“Well,” he conceded, “during the whole season last year, I think we had one or two times when the wrong people were in the game.”

I shook my head. One or two times all year ? I expected one or two mix-ups a game--or series.

You see, with the Chargers, it isn’t like a tight end is a tight end and a wide receiver is a wide receiver and a running back is a running back. These guys take the tight ends and play them at fullback and the wide receivers at running back and the running backs at wide receiver. The Chargers’ offensive philosophy is akin to playing chess with five queens.

“Because of our players’ ability,” Zampese said, “we have a lot of flexibility. If we should get the wrong guy onto the field, he can assume the other guy’s role.”

Of course, it has been established that errant athletes rarely make their way into the Charger huddle.

Zampese, in fact, seemed appalled at the suggestion that it would seem logical to assume confusion would reign with more frequency.

It’s all really very simple.

“Before we signal in the play or the formation or anything,” he explained quite patiently, “we signal in to Dan what personnel he’s going to have. By then, the personnel is running onto the field and yelling the other guys out. And the players have been around long enough to know who should be in and who should be out.”

All of this is initiated from the press box, where Zampese and assistant head coach Al Saunders call the plays. This must be a rather hectic conference call between Zampese and Saunders in the press box and assistant coaches Earnel Durden and Dave Levy on the sidelines. And the results of this conference call are thus forwarded--first personnel and then play and formation--to Fouts on the field.

Remember that all of this must transpire in 30 seconds or less.

Remember also that this offense contains heaven knows how many plays. Zampese, for one, doesn’t have any idea how many plays the Chargers have at their disposal. They are, he said, still concocting new ones, and always will be.

“Putting different guys in different positions with different motion,” he said, “we can hopefully make one play look like seven or eight different plays.”

Everything with this offense is different. And, to me, difficult.

In my job, I have a week to determine which of my “players” should be in what place for what assignment. If I had to do it all in 30 seconds, I would probably end up with seven guys in San Francisco covering the Padres and no one in New York covering the Chargers.

I had one more question for Zampese. I guess I knew the answer, but I had to ask.

Was Gary Anderson’s 20-foot jump-soar-dive-somersault in the Charger playbook?

“No,” he laughed. “Not that part of it anyway. We sat there dumbfounded like everyone else.”

I nodded smugly. It was good to hear that something dumbfounds these guys.