Chargers Bank on Defense and Defeat Browns in OT
A team that began the season with a questionable future, and allegedly living off a strike-bloated present, has bullied back into its grand past.
Against the AFC’s top-ranked defense Sunday, the Chargers scored 13 points in the game’s final 7:24, came back from a 10-point deficit and defeated the Cleveland Browns, 27-24, in overtime.
On the third play of overtime, Charger defensive back Vencie Glenn intercepted a Bernie Kosar pass on the Brown 45-yard line and returned it 20 yards. Two plays later, Vince Abbott kicked a 33-yard field goal.
And suddenly it was the early ‘80s again: three straight first-place finishes, playoffs, winning that didn’t feel like strikeball winning, winning that felt real.
Suddenly, it was Vencie Glenn dancing around the middle of the San Diego Jack Murphy Stadium field, waving his taped arm above his head. It was 55,381 fans waving back.
It was 36-year-old Dan Fouts clapping like a little boy, actually smiling and shaking his fists. It was 55,381 fans shaking their fists back.
It was Coach Al Saunders walking into the locker room with a big splotch of blood on his still-pressed white shirt.
“How many have we won?” asked Saunders, apparently dazed. “Six straight?”
Good guess. After a season-opening loss to Kansas City, and thanks in part to three wins by a replacement team, the Chargers are 6-1, the best record in the AFC.
“We’re for real,” said tight end Kellen Winslow, who looked like the early ‘80s with 7 catches for 76 yards. “We’re thinking, we can win no matter what it takes.
“On the sideline in the fourth quarter, it wasn’t like we were beat up and tired and wanting to go into the locker room. We were all talking about who was going to make the good plays.”
This is also the Chargers’ best start in 26 years. That’s when they first came to this town from Los Angeles in 1961 and went 11-0 and gave everybody the wrong idea.
“This is the best team we’ve had since the 1982 playoffs,” Fouts said, referring to the last time the Chargers finished above fourth place. “I see people maturing and playing at a notch where they haven’t played before. We’re getting to the point where we have more weapons than we’ve ever had.”
The winning weapon Sunday was the field goal by Abbott 2:16 into overtime. He had been 10 yards short on a 52-yard attempt at the end of the first half, after a high snap by Dennis McKnight. He had been wide left on a 32-yard attempt with 11:32 left in the game, when the Chargers were trailing by 10.
And that’s not the worst of it. Just before Abbott’s game-winner, Brown cornerback Hanford Dixon stared him down and emphatically pointed at the ground.
“I just wanted to put some ‘himo-jimo’ on him,” said Dixon. “He didn’t say anything, he just looked crazy.”
Said Abbott: “I prayed to God I’d get a chance to kick the winning field goal.”
Sunday’s most exciting weapon was Fouts, who threw for 315 yards, 17 more than Kosar, who is 13 years younger. It was Fouts, who, after the defensive backfield had blown a couple of seven-point leads, took the team on two fourth-period drives to tie it up.
On the first drive, he was 7 for 8 for 75 yards, and capped it with a 22-yard touchdown pass to Lionel James that closed the gap to 24-21 with 5:08 left in the game. On the second drive he was 2 for 3 for 24 yards and set up Abbott’s 20-yard field goal that tied the score, 24-24 with 1:50 left.
But Sunday’s lethal weapon was the Charger defense.
The Browns had the ball three times late in the game and were trying first to protect their 24-21 lead, and then trying to win the game after they’d guessed right on the overtime coin flip. But all three times they were stopped.
“In a game like this, the defense is capable of taking control of the momentum with the big plays,” Fouts said. “That’s what happened today.”
The third play in overtime was the most spectacular. Glenn found himself in front of a Kosar lob that sailed over the head of Earnest Byner, who was busy trying to protect that head from the close cover of linebacker Billy Ray Smith.
“The coach (defensive coordinator Ron Lynn) just told me to stay in the middle of the field,” Glenn said. “Kosar threw it up, I just waited for it to come to me.”
Said Kosar: “I should have thrown it away.”
One series earlier, with 28 seconds left in the game, the defense unfurled perhaps its most important play. On second and 10 from the Charger 41, Glenn and fellow safety Martin Bayless stunned Kosar on a blitz that resulted in a six-yard sack.
On the next play, Kosar threw a pass after running past the line of scrimmage. With the penalty, it pushed the Browns out of any field goal range and set up the extra period.
“It was a call that needed to be made,” said Lynn of the blitz. “We knew that one more good play would put them in field goal position.”
Defensive end Joe Phillips said: “You could tell Bernie was shook up by then. He was standing there over the center, and was interrupting his cadence with, ‘They’re coming, they’re coming!’ I’ve never heard that before.”
Said Kosar: “I saw the blitz coming, I tried to get into the count quicker, but I still wasn’t quick enough.”
On the previous series, the Browns had been stopped back at their own 19-yard line, setting up the game-tying Charger drive. On third down from the Brown 19, Phillips doggedly chased Kosar around the backfield for what seemed like a lunar month before Kosar finally dropped at his feet, avoiding a sandwich crush from Phillips and Charger Terry Unrein, who had just arrived.
“Bernie had to fall down, or he would have died,” said Phillips. “I saw Terry coming and thought, ‘Man, Bernie is really going to get it now.”’
After the sack, Brown punter Jeff Gossett shanked one 31 yards, which gave the Chargers the ball on the Brown 46 and set up the tying drive.
“Bernie got rattled, he’s not used to pressure with the Monsters of the Midway blocking for him up there,” said Charger nose tackle Mike Charles. “Our defense loves being in there. We like to be the first guys on the field to make things happen.”
Fouts said: “It started with great defense, and it ended with great defense. It was the ultimate team game.”
Oh yes, before anyone forgets, there was a story here fifty seconds into the game, when Kosar threw the ball across the middle into the hands of the one man in the stadium who would have killed for it. Ex-Brown Chip Banks, just traded here last spring, made the interception and began an afternoon in which he also enjoyed four tackles, a fumble recovery, a standing ovation and more satisfaction than should be allowed.
“Yes, it was very, very nice,” said Banks. “It was exciting to play against guys who I have lived with for the past five years. This will go down as one of my best games so far.”
His early interception was the start of a roll. The Chargers would score 14 points in their first 10 plays from scrimmage. They scored right away on a 14-yard end around by James, and then went 82 yards on their next possession for another score. That came on 235 pounds of acrobatics by rookie Rod Bernstine, who took a Fouts pass at the five and leaped over Al Gross into the end zone for his first NFL touchdown.
Then, nothing. While the Browns were scoring 17 points and taking their lead, the Chargers were doing nothing. They had eight dropped passes, including three that would have resulted in touchdowns. To end the first half they had three straight overthrown passes into the end zone. Then during a six-minute stretch in the third quarter, thanks to consecutive turnovers (a fumble by James and interception of Fouts by Dixon) the Browns scored 10 points on 15 plays.
That spree ended with a one-yard touchdown run by Byner with 3:12 left in the third quarter. It was Browns 24, Chargers 14. Game, set and . . .
“Not this team,” Charger tackle Jim Lachey said. “Everybody was talking about how we were just inches from winning this thing, how we were so close. We knew we’d have a chance before it was over. We knew it would be a 60-minute game.”
In many ways, then, the Chargers indeed received more than they bargained for.
