Analysis : Requiem for Chargers: ‘It’s Been a Long, Weird Trip’ : To Repair This Team For the Next Season, Offense, Emotion Will Have to Be Supplied

Les Miller rolled his eyes. His voice trembled. He could have just been through a bad meal. Or the ‘60s.

“It’s been a long, weird trip,” he said.

He had been through something unimaginable--the Chargers’ 1987 season. If the memory of these past three months deserves a marker, he had provided the inscription.

It was an autumn that thrust an innocent team, previously 4-12, on a sudden, wild, mind-altering rush, only to dump it last Sunday, in utter disrepair, in the Denver snow.

That is where the Chargers find themselves now, with essentially a 5-7 team (can we finally forget the strike?), with no offense, no defensive backfield and no emotion.

“We’re a team that was having a fantastic season and let up,” said Miller, a defensive end. “We got so close, we got right there, and when we grabbed for the brass ring, we flipped. And we missed.”

“We didn’t get it done when we had to get it done,” said Joe Phillips, a defensive tackle. “I’d say that’s a major weakness.”

What, wasn’t this team once the best in the NFL at 8-1?

Yes, but it lost its last six games to fall from the playoffs.

Didn’t this team once beat AFC Central champion Cleveland with an overtime interception and AFC East champion Indianapolis by forcing a goal-line fumble?

Yes, but it finished last in the AFC in giveaway-takeaways (minus 15), once losing four fumbles in one half and throwing eight interceptions in its last two games.

Didn’t this offense average 28 points over a three-game stretch? Yes, but it didn’t score once in its last 27 possessions, its last 112 minutes. It wound up scoring just one more touchdown in 15 games--24--than San Francisco’s Jerry Rice scored in 13 games.

It was a mixed-up three months, and only the ending was conclusive.

“I have no mixed emotions,’ said Steve Ortmayer, director of football operations. “I feel horrible about it. It turned into a disaster.”

Even the usually talkative team leaders were left dizzy. Wide receiver Wes Chandler: “I could not tell you what happened. I just don’t know.”

Linebacker Billy Ray Smith: “I will draw no conclusions.”

In sifting through the rubble, it is obvious that the Chargers weren’t as good as 8-1 and probably aren’t as bad as 0-6.

They attained the good early record because of the 3-0 strike team and because their timing offense stayed sharp during the layoff, getting a post-strike jump of about a month on everyone else.

They simply went into the slump when everyone finally caught up. It didn’t help that of those six games, five were against playoff teams, including three division champions.

“A good start doesn’t mean anything if you’re not able to hold on to the dream,” cornerback Elvis Patterson said.

Maybe that’s all any of this season was--a dream, either sweet or awful. No, can’t be. Not when you can find causes like pieces of sharp glass:

Dan Fouts.

Two days after the end of the season, Ortmayer was asked the one question that nobody has dared ask here for 10 years.

He was asked, if sore-shouldered Dan Fouts is healthy next year, is he the starting quarterback?

He was asked to give a six-time Pro Bowl quarterback a vote of confidence.

And he couldn’t answer.

“You are asking the wrong guy,” said Ortmayer. Since he cuts the checks that will pay Fouts $750,000 next season in the final year of his contract, that makes one wonder who the right guy is.

“This is not something we decide right at the end of the season,” Ortmayer continued. “It is something we have to put the pieces together on. It’s not so important to make the quick decisions as the right decisions.”

The same question was put to Coach Al Saunders. He also danced.

“I don’t know,” said Saunders. “These things will surface in the next month. I think, if he is totally healthy, and ready to play, and able to have the type of year we think he’s capable of having, and the type of year he’s capable of having, yes, he’ll be the starter.”

The question attempted to find its way to Charger owner Alex Spanos. He would not accept it, or any other questions about Fouts or the Chargers.

“He wishes Steve Ortmayer to speak for him,” Charger publicist Rick Smith said.

And Dan Fouts, who will be 37 when next season starts? He’s not publicly acknowledging retirement or his bad year or anything.

In other words, nobody knows, and nobody’s saying, and when was the last time, in the name of Fouts, that any season here has ended like that?

But then, when was the last time Fouts, whose year ended a game early with a rotator cuff tear against Indianapolis, played so badly?

Since he tore a calf muscle late in the first Indianapolis game--after leading the team to a 7-1 record--here’s how he finished.

Passing attempts: 203

Completions: 107

Percentage: 53

Touchdowns: 3

Interceptions: 7

For the season, only one quarterback rated worse in the entire AFC. Charger fans can thus offer a moment of silence and thanksgiving for Pittsburgh’s Mark Malone, the worse-rated in all of football.

Fouts’ quarterback rating of 70 hasn’t been this bad since 1975, the third season of his 15-year career. The same applies to his overall completion percentage of 56.6.

And when was the last time a group commanded by one of the fiercest, most unwavering leaders in sports finished dead last in the NFL in hacking it under pressure--in third-down conversions. The Chargers converted just 30.1%, worse than both Green Bay and Atlanta.

Although his current teammates will not admit it, they saw all of this. They felt it. They let it affect them.

They would wince in frustration at repeated overthrown passes, missed receivers and pressure breakdowns. They would wince as you wince at your grandmother when you first discover she can’t make it down the stairs by herself.

And it would bring them down.

Mike Humiston, a replacement linebacker who played five post-strike game with Fouts before being released, recently offered this:

“Just in my short time there, one thing was obvious--the entire Charger team revolves around how Fouts is playing. Their emotion and performance rise and fall with him. Everybody reflects off him. Simply, how he does is how the team does.

“And face it, he did not have a banner year.”

Where do they look from here? How about Washington, where the Redskins won’t have room next season for both Jay Schroeder and Doug Williams? How about Minnesota--don’t they have seven or eight quarterbacks up there? How about anywhere but San Diego?

After all, they won’t draft this spring until 15th, too late for immediate quarterback help. And Saunders has admitted that there is no help here.

Backup Mark Herrmann is just 1-5 as a Charger starter. He says, “I feel more comfortable entering the game later, after I’ve had time to study the defenses.’

Rookie third-stringer Mark Vlasic, meanwhile, is just 3 for 6 as a professional.

“Mark (Herrmann) has been backing up for us, and he’s excelled in that job,” said Saunders. “And Vlasic is a young, physically gifted talent, but as far as experience is concerned, he’s a ways away from jumping into the picture.

“If we needed to do anything, we would have to look for an experienced quarterback from somewhere else.”

He wouldn’t say when. A good guess would be as we speak.

The Rest of the Offense.

Remember when the Chargers acquired Ram running back Barry Redden this summer and pledged to convert their offensive attack to a power running game?

Redden wound up carrying the ball 11 times for 36 yards. He wouldn’t feel so bad except that the guys who beat him out were the worst group in the AFC, second-worst in the NFL.

The Chargers gained just 1,308 yards on the ground, or 87.2 yards per game, or not a whole lot of broken tackles.

Neither Curtis Adams, Tim Spencer nor Gary Anderson finished in the conference’s top 20 in rushing. The Chargers were the only team shut out there. The Pittsburgh Steelers had three rushers in the top 20.

“It’s no secret where we need help,” Saunders said.

During the losing streak, a Charger starter who did not want to be identified put it differently.

“How long can this go on, the defense holding them, and then the offense letting us down?” he asked.

It didn’t help that the offensive line flip-flopped Gary Kowalski, Broderick Thompson and Curtis Rouse at right tackle. A need should be filled there.

“But that’s not the only story,” said Kellen Winslow, Charger tight end. “We’d get down to the goal line OK, and then would come away with nothing.”

He could have been referring to the other offensive problem, kicker Vince Abbott, who missed his last five field-goal tries. For the season, he was 13 of 23 for 57%, the worst in the AFC. Six other kickers topped 80%.

Rolf Benirschke, you still retired? Glory offensive days, where are you?

Emotion.

It was after the 33-18 loss in Houston, their third in a row. You remember, the one in which it looked as if they were extremely irritated with the notion of having to put on a uniform.

One Charger, who asked that his name not be used, stood in the mostly silent locker room and talked about the team breakfast.

“You know, I came down this morning, and it was like we had no big game today,” he said. “Guys were joking around, cutting up, I’ve never seen a team so loose and relaxed.

“A couple of us couldn’t stand it. We had to get the hell out of there.”

It was a week later, after the Chargers had stumbled to a 20-16 loss to Pittsburgh. Another player was asked what happened in the locker room at halftime, after the Chargers had dropped the ball six times in two quarters and were lucky to be leading, 9-7.

“Nothing happened,” he said.

There are times a team needs a coach to yell and scream, but that isn’t Saunders’ way. In the end, then, what is usually admired in teams became the emotional problem of this one. They played like their coach. They never got outwardly mad. They never pulled out their hair. They never wrinkled their shirts.

And mired in that losing streak, playing playoff teams with plenty to be excited or angry about, they never had a chance.

“It got to the point where, when it came time to face adversity and fight back, we didn’t fight back,” observed Jamie Holland, the rookie wide receiver. “I don’t call six straight losses fighting back.”

“We need to get closer as a team,” Patterson said. “We have to find that team unity.”