Chargers Demonstrate Ability for Turning the Bad Into Good

Are my eyes and brain cells playing tricks on me? Are the Chargers and Indianapolis really involved in a genuine Hoedown in the Hoosier Dome as genuine first-place teams?

Of course, the erstwhile Dolts paid a price to establish their credibility. They paid a price to get Eric Dickerson and then paid a price to make him happy. The ensuing hype and hoopla gave them headlines beyond what might have been expected from a 4-3 start.

The Chargers?

Their transformation has been quieter. They have gone from last year’s green team with a gray quarterback to a thunder team with a lightning quarterback, just as they were seven or eight years ago, when John Jefferson was waving the original homer hanky during pregame introductions. And they have done this without the grandstand play.

The Chargers’ renaissance has been carved from two of the most potentially negative of circumstances imaginable--the players’ strike, and bitter confrontations between a star player and management. Emerging from dilemmas such as these with a 6-1 record is like having orchids bloom on poison ivy.

Ironically, Dan Fouts, the quarterback, is the focal point in each of these seemingly devastating scenarios.

Let’s deal first with what the strike did for the Chargers. Yes, the replacement team helped considerably with its 3-0 record. Yes, players such as Les Miller, Joe Phillips and Elvis Patterson came from the replacement team and buttressed an already developing defense. Yes, yes, yes.

But the strike did more than that. It has helped Fouts come to November healthy, at least as healthy as a National Football League quarterback can get, for the first time since 1982. That was the last year he played a “full” season and that, coincidentally, was the last season interrupted by a strike. A full season then was nine games.

In fact, the whole team is probably more fit because it spent those four weeks playing some touch football and a little softball instead of being battered by behemoths each Sunday.

“No doubt,” Fouts said this week. “Physically, we weren’t beaten up. Physically, we were ready to play. And we were more mentally fit, too. We were ready to play, anxious to play.”

And the quarterback has gotten to November without concussions, knee injuries, groin pulls, shoulder injuries and broken noses, not that a broken nose would keep him out. He used to come out of the training room looking more like an iceberg than a human being.

“If you ask Dan, he’ll probably tell you this is the best he’s felt this time of year in a long time,” said Steve Ortmayer, the director of football operations.

“Actually,” said Fouts, laughing, “I didn’t feel all that great earlier in the week.”

Fouts laughing? In November? That’s the kind of year it has been.

Back in August, it sure didn’t look as if Fouts would enjoy light-hearted moments in November. Relations between quarterback and management were just a bit acrimonious, and that may be understating it.

This was a nasty period during which one side was saying the quarterback would have to be traded because of excessive salary demands and the other side was saying no such demands were made. An ugly hole was being dug, because it came to appear that either one side was lying or the other side was greedy.

All of this just blew over. Poof. It was gone. Dan Fouts was playing quarterback and no one was saying anything, nasty or otherwise, about anyone. It was as if the whole episode was a less-than-dreamy dream.

Now we flash forward to a bit of controversy that stirred during the strike, when things were as tranquil as they can be during anything as tumultuous as a strike.

Fouts, through his representative, demanded to be paid during the strike. After all, he was not a member of the players’ union and he was “quarterbacking” the striking players through their workouts. A deadline date for payment came and went, and there was a threat of litigation and/or arbitration.

And all of this blew over. Poof. It was gone. And Fouts was playing quarterback.

What is going on?

“We’ve settled all our differences,” Fouts said. “We’ve cleared everything up so there will be absolutely no distractions.”

Cleared up? He has been paid?

“Everything has been settled,” Fouts said. “Let’s leave it at that. Anything else will have to come from someone else. Let’s just say that I am very happy.”

OK. Fine.

I called Ortmayer to give him a chance to say that, yes, the Chargers had settled things with their star player. They weren’t about to get involved in such a brouhaha that they would have to ship him to Green Bay or Atlanta or New Orleans.

“There really hasn’t been anything other than a meeting of the minds,” he said, ducking an opportunity to be a hero. “Dan’s a pro and I think he thinks we’re pros, so we’ve put things aside and gone on with the season.”

Ah, I suggested, they’ve put a little money off to the side. . . .

“I can’t speculate or comment,” Ortmayer said. “There’s nothing more I can say, other than life is going on.”

Indeed. Life is going on in a very nice way for the Chargers. This team was a woeful 4-12 in 1986. This was looking like a team that might not make the playoffs again in Dan Fouts’ lifetime, much less his playing career. And now . . .

“I never felt we were as bad as 4-12,” Fouts said. “In fact, I thought we were a damned lot better than 4-12. I really felt, if things went right, we might make the playoffs this year, but things would really have to go right.”

They have. They really have. Even the bad has been turned to good for the Chargers in 1987.