Chargers Have What It Takes to Win the Troy Aikman Derby

One afternoon last week, the telephone rang and the cheery voice of colleague Bob Wolf was on the other end.

“Guess what,” he bubbled.

I didn’t have the faintest idea, but it sounded like he had hit the lottery.

“The Chargers,” he proclaimed, “are in control of their own destiny.”

Some destiny, I mumbled. This was certainly no dynasty destiny these guys were putting together.

“No,” Wolf insisted, “I’m serious. If they lose their last 6 games, no one can catch them.”

But who would want to?

Of course, I understood what he was saying, but I found it amusing to string him along. Should the Chargers accomplish the ignominy of losing their last 6 games and finishing with a 2-14 record, they would get the very first pick in the 1989 draft.

This little upside-down race has come to be known as The Troy Aikman Derby because of the suspicion that the UCLA quarterback will be the player most coveted by the weakest and meekest of the National Football League.

It did not surprise me that Wolf had taken the time to sit down and sort all the variation combinations that go into determining the worst of the worst in the NFL. Consider that Wolf is a lifelong fan of the Chicago Cubs and you come to understand why he might have a deeper appreciation for ineptitude to the extreme.

To put his piece of wisdom in place, Wolf ignored Steve Harvey’s Bottom Ten and instead came up with The Aikman Eight.

Here they are, as they stand the morning of the 11th Sunday of the season:

Worst, and therefore No. 1 for our purposes--Kansas City Mischiefs (1-8-1)

2. San Diego Dischargers (2-8)

3. Tampa Bay Yucks (2-8)

4. Green Bay Lackers (2-8)

5. Dallas Cowpies (2-8)

6. Detroit Kittens* (2-8)

7. Pittsburgh Reelers (2-8)

8. Atlanta Burning (3-7)

(*Nickname unfair to cat lovers)

Wolf explains that the tie-breaking criteria, which separates teams No. 2 through No. 7, is strength of schedule, the weaker the better. If the Chargers lose their remaining games, which include a potential Drano Bowl of a season finale against Kansas City, they cannot be caught when it comes to doing the worst against the worst.

Understand that the Chargers are not exactly shoo-ins. Please do not rush right out and order your 1989 season tickets.

A number of factors are working against them . . .

The Owner

Alex Spanos, bless his naivete, thinks his team can win them all. In fact, he said this week he expects to win them all, and is not interested in any consolation prizes that come with finishing on the very bottom.

Perhaps he is just trying to avoid the stigma of being considered a Donald T. Sterling Jr. You remember Donald T.? He was the guy who gathered the media to do lunch at Lubach’s a few years back and announced that the Clippers would be best served by finishing last so they would be in position to draft Ralph Sampson.

I don’t know how much lunch cost, but the tip turned out to a fine by the NBA commissioner--and it was rather steep.

Regardless, Spanos is a man driven to succeed, and, to him, mediocrity is actually a desirable upward step from awful.

The Coach

Al Saunders, bless his optimism, has seen the sunny side of every gloomy defeat, but the stormy glower of the owner casts an ominous shadow on his future.

If this team plays so poorly as to finish on the bottom of the stack--which is to say on top of The Troy Aikman Derby--Saunders will not be around to do the coaching.

Consequently, this is a man who will be as driven as the owner, lest he end up carrying a lunch pail to one of Spanos’ construction sites to fulfill the remainder of his 3-year contract.

The Quarterback

Mark Vlasic, bless his inexperience, has a very big stake in this scenario.

If Vlasic plays well in these remaining games-- which is to say the Chargers don’t lose them all--he does two things:

1. He proves that maybe, just maybe, he can do the job.

2. He takes the Chargers out of position to draft Aikman.

Tune in this morning at 10 for Vlasic’s NFL starting debut and a literal morning line on how his role might develop.

The Schedule

This might be the greatest pitfall of all.

Danger lurks around every bend. The schedule-maker, bless his sadistic soul, has cursed the Chargers with 3 winnable games out of their final 6.

Thus, this becomes a pivotal day for the Chargers. The L word, as in Losses, is crucial to this campaign too, and the Chargers cannot afford to go down to Atlanta and stumble and bumble to a victory.

If the Chargers can once again succeed at being unsuccessful, and they have been good at that, they can probably rest easy through successive losses to the Rams, San Francisco and Cincinnati before they will be tested again.

However, Weeks 15 and 16 are potential killers. They meet two more stiffs, Pittsburgh and Kansas City, to close the season, and both games are at home. It may take all the good fortune they can muster to lose both of those.

But Bob Wolf is right. This is one race the Chargers can win. The ball is in their hands, and this is one time when it is probably in their best interests to do what they do so often anyway.

Drop it.