It Really Isn’t Any Secret Why Chargers Are 7-1 : AFC West Leaders Can Credit Strike and Improved Defense
OK, so it’s not exactly midseason; in fixing the schedule, the exhausted NFL decided this wrinkled season couldn’t bear a midseason.
But the Chargers have played eight games and have seven games left, and that’s close enough. Time to slow down this runaway bandwagon--maybe throw a couple of replacement-game tapes in front of the wheels--and take a look back.
They are 7-1. They lead the AFC West by two games. Sunday night, they will play the Raiders with a national cable television audience. The game will be watched by a San Diego Jack Murphy Stadium record crowd of 62,000-plus. It will be covered by 450 reporters.
This is the biggest hubbub down here since the Chargers went to the AFC championship game in 1981.
Surprised?
“No,” Coach Al Saunders said. “Pleased, not surprised.”
“Yes,” said Steve Ortmayer, director of football operations. “Surprised at the record.”
Now that that’s settled, on to the Chargers’ two first-half secrets. After all, they were 1-7 last season, and nothing changes that fast without secrets. In order of importance:
Secret No. 1 . . . The Strike .
Big surprise here.
No matter what happens the rest of the year, the following facts will be affixed to this team’s history like lightning bolts on the side of its helmets.
The club’s three strikeball games were all victories, all on the road, two in games in which oddsmakers would have rated the regular Chargers as underdogs.
The other four teams in the AFC West, each favored to finish ahead of the Chargers, combined for a 5-7 record during the strike.
The strike eliminated a Charger game with Seattle, one of the strongest teams in the league. The strike set up the Chargers with more home games in their “second season” (6 of their final 10 games at home) than every other other AFC West team, and all but two other teams in football.
And then there were ways that the strike really helped.
The month layoff allowed quarterback Dan Fouts, who had back problems during training camp, to get healthy. In the past two weeks, he has led the team to last-minute victories on three late fourth-quarter scoring drives, of 85 and 44 yards against Cleveland and 59 yards against Indianapolis. In those drives, he was 12 for 14 for 139 yards.
“In my recollection, I have never seen Dan Fouts play better than he has played,” Ortmayer said. “The thing is, he’s able to play.”
The strike also allowed tight end Kellen Winslow to recover properly from last spring’s arthroscopic knee surgery. Against Indianapolis, he caught only four passes, but he ran over defenders with all of them, as three went for first downs.
The strike also corrected late starts from both Charger outside linebackers, who have elevated the defense to what Fouts calls “the big-play level.”
Billy Ray Smith missed more than three weeks of camp as a holdout. Chip Banks missed a month with Achilles’ tendinitis. Both are fine now. Just ask Eric Dickerson.
“It was maybe my worst training camp ever,” Ortmayer said. “We had one problem after another. We had the injuries all over the place. We’re working 18 hours a day.
“The strike helped us a lot like that. Of course, the strike helped us because we were prepared for it.”
Indeed, although strikeball quarterback Rick Neuheisel is preparing to return to law school, and Al Williams is hiding out on the Chargers’ nonactive list, few will forget the first-half MVPs, the fine replacement team that the Charger office was 1) smart or 2) lucky enough to put together.
“You have to understand, we had this plan implemented back in February,” Saunders said.
“Before training camp,” Ortmayer explained, “we sat down and prepared for the eventualities that transpired. We knew that there was more than the potential for a strike. We knew it was based in history.”
So they invited 20 extra players to camp and spent more time than usual with them. Then upon releasing players, they asked them to be available in case of a strike. They later used many of those players to form the replacement team.
One of those players who started out in training camp--Jeffrey Jackson--will start at inside linebacker Sunday. Two others, Al Williams and Blaise Winter, are on the inactive roster. All told, there are nine replacements on the Chargers’ active roster, more than any team in the NFL. Either the Chargers have great scouting or, before the strike, they were just a terrible team.
“I’m not sure why so many replacements made it,” said Ortmayer, a former Raider official. “I do know there is something to be said for guys who are playing for their football lives. Those are the kinds of players I like.
“That’s why this team is starting to remind me of the 1980 Raiders (Super Bowl champions who beat the Chargers in the AFC championship game). Not the most talented but, from midseason on, they found a way to win.”
While the replacements were going 3-0, an equally important thing was happening 15 miles away, on a practice field at UC San Diego. The regulars were not going south. They were staying in town, working out and staying together.
“I think more than anything during the strike, it was important that the team leadership emerged,” Saunders said. “That has carried us. That’s what I’m happiest about.”
Remembered Ortmayer: “I had a long talk with Wes (Chandler, player representative) before they went out. I told him I understood what he had to do, and I just hoped the team would do it together.
“I was so glad this team didn’t split like other teams. I was frustrated by the strike, but I was glad they did it all together.”
Secret No. 2 . . . The Defense .
Last season at this time, the defense was allowing an average of 28 points per game. This year, they have allowed 18 a game.
That’s an improvement of a touchdown and a field goal every Sunday. Of all the defensive improvements, none matters so much as that.
“What Al (Saunders) talked about from Day 1 one was, we will get better on defense,” said new defensive coordinator Ron Lynn, who must also take a piece of the credit.
There will be only four defensive starters Sunday who were starters this time last season. But two of the changes were necessitated by season-ending injuries to two of their best players, defensive end Leslie O’Neal and safety Jeff Dale.
They have added All-Pro linebacker Banks, but are also starting three players--Les Miller, Elvis Patterson and Jackson--who began the season on waivers.
So what gives?
“They are playing more aggressive,” Lynn said.
“We are trying to out-hit each other,” safety Martin Bayless said. “I see Banks, Mike Charles, Billy Ray making big hits, and I want to make big hits. I want them to mention my name with those big hits.”
That outer display of aggressiveness, Lynn said, comes from something different within.
“They are aggressive because they are more confident,” he said. “They are trying to win instead of trying to keep from losing.”
And from where does that confidence come?
“The owner, Coach Saunders, the defensive coaches, everywhere,” said Lynn, which explains nothing.
And that pretty much explains why everything that’s happened in this first half is because of secrets. And how most teams, including the Chargers, probably couldn’t put together another first half like this if they tried.
Which only makes one wonder, what happens next?
HOW THE CHARGERS HAVE CHANGED
Year Rushes Yds Passes Comp Yds Int Sacks 4Q Scoring 1986 195 762 343 184 2,007 23 24 37-72 1987 249 852 253 156 1,763 9 35 70-20
Year Pass Yds Allow’d 1986 1,983 1987 1,389
