It’s Now Up to Defense and Bengals

At the two-minute warning near the end of Cleveland’s game at Pittsburgh Saturday, a Charger victory over the Chicago Bears was featured on one of those “fantastic finishes” clips.

How timely that was.

In another two minutes of play, the Browns were to wrap up a 19-13 victory and keep the Chargers alive in quest for a truly fantastic finish to the 1987 season.

The Browns’ victory was the first part of what will have to be a remarkable trifecta to get the Chargers into the playoffs for the first time since 1982. The Steelers were one of two teams who had to lose to keep the Chargers in the hunt. Houston must also lose this morning’s game against visiting Cincinnati.

Then comes the tough part. The Chargers must win at Denver, where they are 10- to 11-point underdogs, at 1 this afternoon.

“We have to take care of Denver,” linebacker Billy Ray Smith said. “That’s really the only thing we can do. We can’t take care of anything else.”

The Chargers have taken care of little lately. They are in these convoluted circumstances because they have gone from an 8-1 start into a five-game nose dive to 8-6. They are not exactly going to Denver on a roll.

“It’s almost ridiculous,” Smith said, “that we’ve lost five straight games, and we still have a shot at the playoffs.”

A shot in the dark, perhaps, but a shot nevertheless.

Denver is not without a stake in the game. The Broncos need to win to stay ahead of Cleveland for the home-field playoff advantage and, in fact, may need to win to stay ahead of Seattle in the AFC West, should Seattle win as expected this morning in Kansas City.

This is the final chapter in a twisted tale caused by a strike, canceled games and replacement games.

The Chargers will go into this finale, meaningful to them or not, without quarterback Dan Fouts, who is out with an injured right shoulder. The quarterback will be Mark Herrmann, who is fourth on the team in passing yardage behind Fouts and replacement quarterbacks Rick Neuheisel and Mike Kelley.

It does not take the longest of memories for the Chargers to conclude that all is not lost in Denver without Fouts. They won there a year ago, 9-3, when Fouts was out and Tom Flick was the quarterback.

That victory, Al Saunders’ first as head coach, was conservatively constructed with a game plan designed to keep the ball on the ground and out of the hands of Denver quarterback John Elway. The Chargers rushed the ball 39 times and threw it 23 times, and Elway suffered through one of the worst games. He completed 13 of 31 passes for 196 yards. Three were intercepted, including one by Vencie Glenn in the end zone with 24 seconds to play.

More conservative play will likely be in the works for the Chargers today.

And Elway, once again, is in the forefront of their thoughts. He was more himself in Denver’s 31-17 victory in San Diego Nov. 29, throwing for 347 yards and running for 20 more. He was not sacked.

“They’re using that shotgun now at least 50% of the time,” Saunders said. “It makes it very difficult because he gets back so quickly and he’s so mobile. It’s hard to bring anyone from the outside and have a chance to get to him.”

The alternative is to bring the heaviest rush up the middle and hope Denver’s most nifty runner . . . a fellow named Elway . . . doesn’t turn the outside into his personal playground.

The defense, thus, would appear to be the key to this game for the Chargers. A conservative offense will try to posture itself to stay out of trouble, use up the clock and maybe establish some field position. The defense will have to make things happen.

Unfortunately for the Chargers, the defense has suffered along with everyone else during this late-season slump. During the 8-1 start, the Charger defense (and, to be fair, special teams) came up with 20 turnovers and 37 sacks . . . but only 4 turnovers and 6 sacks in the five games since.

Big plays have been missing.

“That’s the obvious difference between the five games (the regulars) won after the strike and the last five that we’ve dropped,” Smith said. “Not just the defense, but the entire team thrives on big plays. That goes for offense and special teams, too. We were coming up with the big plays when we were winning.”

Dan Reeves, Denver’s coach, has also noticed that big plays have been missing from the Chargers’ repertoire.

“They’ve lost some close ones because they haven’t been able to make the play when they’ve needed it,” he said. “It’s been a couple of years since they’ve been in this situation, and a lot of their people have never been here before. All they need to do is win a football game and turn this whole thing around.”

Should Houston follow Pittsburgh’s footsteps to oblivion, the Chargers could really turn this whole thing--the AFC playoff picture--upside down and sideways. What it might give them, perhaps, would be more a fantastic start than a fantastic finish.

Also contributing to this article is Times staff writer Curt Holbreich.