Chandler Takes Leadership Role to Heart : Charger Veteran Setting an Example, as He Did During Strike
He calls him “The Young Jamie Holland.”
“That’s what he calls me, always the same funny thing,” said Holland, a rookie Charger receiver. “He is my role model, my teacher. He talks to me all during the game. He tells me about the coverages. He tells me how far the safeties are dropping, and how tough the corners are bumping.
“I came in late in the Houston game, and it’s all over with, and he tells me, ‘You still play hard, you keep your head up, you go the full 60 minutes.’ ”
Jamie Holland smiled.
“After watching him all season, you know what I call him?” he said. “I call him, ‘The Great Wes Chandler.’ ”
No matter what colorful images the Chargers will scatter upon us in these deadline weeks of the season, one vision will remain when talking about 1987: Oct. 15, Wes Chandler standing in a parking lot at San Diego Jack Murphy Stadium, his blue sweat suit rumpled, his eyes red.
“We were de nied ,” he said, again and again. “We were de nied .”
The Charger player representative, having asked his team to blindly follow him for three weeks of a players’ strike, had now tried to lead them back to work.
He had marched them, single file, through the stadium and past a locked locker room. He had led them into a meeting where Charger management told them, sorry, they couldn’t play until the next week. He had ordered them back on their feet and led them back out.
He had looked very silly.
“At times, I guess it got heated,” Chandler conceded Thursday. “My credibility was on the line.”
Those times are finished. Wes Chandler has slowly pounded out the dents in his pride, his cause, his image, his voice.
Two months later, with debris still scattered through memories of one of the biggest defeats in the history of the sports labor movement, it appears Chandler didn’t come out so bad.
Chargers say Chandler has since taken this leadership thing to the field. They notice him playing hurt. They notice him helping those who aren’t as fortunate to have been around 10 years, who don’t see the field the way they see their living room.
Oh, yes, and Sunday in Houston, Chandler caught 10 passes for 140 yards. They noticed that.
“There has been a lot of pressure on him because of the player representative thing,” said tight end Eric Sievers, another team leader. “And all we’ve seen is, every Sunday, he’s gone out there and laid it on the line.”
At 31, with a year left on his contract, Chandler says he has found a need to do more than just know how to run and catch footballs.
He says he needs to pass some of this knowledge on.
“I’ve taken this leadership role to heart,” Chandler said. “I’ve realized that with some of the younger players, I’ve got to be a true friend. I’ve got to be a true friend of this team.
“I’ve got to go out there and play, when maybe before I couldn’t. I’ve got to show these guys what it is like to put it on the line.”
Where with many, such commitment is a matter of choice, Chandler considers it duty.
“I’ve put more pressure on myself, to a certain degree,” he said. “After the strike, I feel something is expected of me.
“We have some young, phenomenal players on this team, but that’s still on paper. They have to learn what to do when the heat is on. I have to do what I can to help them.”
Consider the heat to be on. The Chargers’ recent failure to convert on third-down situations (8 of 46 in the past four games) directly relates to their failure to complete passes to guys such as Chandler.
He had his best game of the year statistically Sunday in Houston, but he also had some of his worst problems. It was a game that mirrored his season. After catching just 20 passes for 315 yards in his previous eight games, he caught 10 for 140 yards in 60 minutes. But his lousy first quarter began the landslide that ended up in a 33-18 defeat.
On the Chargers’ first possession, he cost them a 14-yard pass play from Dan Fouts to Gary Anderson--moving the ball to the Oilers 10--with a motion penalty. On the next play, Fouts fumbled, and Oiler Robert Lyles returned it 55 yards for a touchdown.
Two possessions later, Chandler caught a 16-yard pass but was immediately smacked by linebacker John Grimsley, fumbling the ball and giving it to the Oilers. Six plays later, they kicked a field goal to make it 10-0 and begin the ransacking.
Bad start, good finish, haunting memories. Chandler found it familiar.
“No matter what I did, all I could think about after that game was the fumble,” he said. “The quarterback was in trouble, I come back to bail him out, the cornerback arrives at the spot at the same time I do, I’m watching him and making the catch and--this linebacker comes out of nowhere. Never saw him.”
The motion penalty didn’t so much haunt him as make him feel old.
“In that formation, we had three guys wide, in motion, and I had the furthest to go,” he said. “I just couldn’t get there in time.”
Some have wondered whether the strike has been the cause of any of this. Even with the great week, Chandler is fourth on the team in catches, six behind leader Lionel James.
“But look at our statistics, they are all in the same bracket,” Chandler said. “There’s been some parts of my performance that I haven’t been pleased with, but it has nothing to do with the union activities. You look at the stats, you wouldn’t know I was involved in union activities.
“And the club has not treated me any different because of the strike. I expected they would be too classy for that.”
Others had said Chandler, with age and injury, was growing too brittle to play the over-the-middle role of Charger wide receivers. But after the past few weeks, they aren’t saying that.
Look at the Saturday before the Nov. 15 Raiders game. Chandler had a separated right shoulder and spent the entire week wearing a sling. He had an irritated Achilles’ tendon that spent the entire week under wraps.
Around the locker room, when he found he could walk normally, he had to make darn sure he didn’t bump into anybody. And into that locker room the coaches called him Saturday morning. They sat him down and laid down the facts.
Al Williams is sitting here, ready for activation. If you can’t play, you should say so, now.
Chandler took one look at them.
“I said ‘Bull,’ ” he recalled. “I said, ‘I know what it takes. I’ll play.’
“A few years ago, I may have considered it more carefully. Not now.”
He played, and although he caught just one pass for 15 yards, it was in a first half in which the Chargers scored 16 points, good for an eventual 16-14 win.
“Sometimes,” Chandler said, “your presence is enough.”
Young Jamie Holland agrees.
“I remember when he first got hurt before halftime of the Cleveland game,” Holland said. “They told me I would be playing the whole second half. I said, ‘All right.’ I come into the locker room and don’t even see Wes, he’s in the trainer’s room.
“But then at the start of the second half, I look up and he’s on the field. He says he’s fine and playing. I could not believe it.
“I didn’t play, but then it didn’t matter. I felt good. I learned, just watching him. From the strike to now, I’m so glad he’s around.”
