Foes Feel Pain, Too : Injuries Deplete Charger Defense, but Somehow It Keeps Improving
Once the Chargers had gotten over the shock and disappointment of the 6-game losing streak that crash-landed their 1987 season, their eyes opened wide to the grim reality: Their defense hadn’t been able to stop a loose hot dog wrapper during all those beatings. And it didn’t promise to get any better in 1988.
The front office addressed those needs by selecting offensive players with the first two picks of last spring’s draft. Then it became apparent that former Pro Bowl linebacker Chip Banks wanted no part of the 1988 Chargers. Then linebacker Billy Ray Smith, the team’s best remaining defender, started having all manner of problems keeping his legs healthy. The latest was the discovery this week of a hairline fracture that will sideline him for the rest of the season.
Defensive end Leslie O’Neal began the season on injured reserve. Chuck Faucette, the team’s leading tackler through eight games, hurt his neck and wound up on injured reserve. Almost everybody else experienced physical problems of one kind or another.
The injury epidemic even spread to the training room this week when Todd Belott, the assistant trainer, needed an appendectomy. “It’s contagious,” Coach Al Saunders said. “Like Rodney Peete’s measles.”
If you had told Ron Lynn, the defensive coordinator, that free safety Vencie Glenn and left end Lee Williams would have been the only Chargers to start at the same position through the first 12 games, he would have shuddered.
“Our concern coming into this season was to improve our rushing defense,” he said.
Somehow, they did.
In the last 6 weeks of 1987, the Chargers gave up an average of 162 yards a game on the ground. That total included a whopping 277 to Seattle in Week 10, the game that started their slide.
In the past 6 games this season, the Chargers have allowed an average of 121 yards on the ground. That total includes a stingy 57 yards against Atlanta, a team ranked fourth in the league in rushing offense at the time.
Moreover, only seven teams have allowed fewer points than the 15.4 the Charger defense has averaged the past 5 weeks. (Strangely enough, the two teams that have allowed the most points during that span are Washington and Denver--last year’s Super Bowl teams.)
“Any time you keep an opponent under 20 points, it is our opinion that you ought to win,” Lynn said.
The Charger defense ranks 17th overall in yards allowed (15th against the rush and 16th against the pass), but those numbers are misleading. The Charger defense has given up more yards than many other defenses because its offense (ranked 26th in the league) has left it on the field longer than most others.
More indicative is the Chargers’ No. 7 ranking in average yards allowed per rush. And even more significant is that they have allowed only one rushing touchdown in the past 20 quarters. That score came in Sunday’s 38-24 upset victory over the Rams when Glenn, playing with a sore neck, missed a tackle on Ram back Greg Bell, who bounced off to complete a 12-yard touchdown run.
Only four NFL teams have allowed fewer rushing touchdowns than the eight the Chargers have given up this year.
“Sure we’re aware of these statistics,” Smith said. “To be considered among the better players in the league and among the better teams, you have to have those kind of stats to back yourself up.”
The reasons for the numbers are almost everywhere you look.
Williams sacked the Rams’ Jim Everett three times Sunday and now leads the AFC with 10. Denver’s Simon Fletcher and Cincinnati’s Jim Skow are tied for second with 8. The last Charger to lead the AFC in sacks was Gary “Big Hands” Johnson with 17 1/2 in 1980.
The most interesting aspect of Williams’ sack total is his consistency. Williams was the guy everybody thought would suffer most when O’Neal was out of the lineup. When O’Neal returned, everybody figured Williams’ sacks would increase because defenses would have to pay more attention to O’Neal.
But in the 6 games the Chargers played without O’Neal, Williams had 5 sacks. In the 6 games since O’Neal has returned, Williams has had 5 sacks. He is probably the Chargers’ most legitimate Pro Bowl candidate.
Saunders singles out cornerback Gill Byrd as being even steadier than Williams.
“Gill Byrd is playing right now as well as he’s ever played here,” Saunders says. “He’s the most consistent defensive player we have, down after down, week after week. He’s reached a level of competency in this league that we all expected him to reach at some time as a first-round pick.”
Byrd has reached this level despite being slower than most of the wide receivers he covers and despite being switched from right corner to left corner 3 games ago when Lynn replaced cornerback Elvis Patterson in the starting lineup with Sam Seale.
“The only way most people are going to notice Gill is if he gets interceptions or if the other guys scores a touchdown on him,” Lynn says. “And the latter hasn’t happened.”
Byrd’s team-leading interception total is 4.
Lynn has also welcomed back defensive back Pat Miller, who was on injured reserve with a knee injury until 2 weeks ago. Lynn describes Miller as a “fly-around-really-knock-your-eyes-out kind of guy.”
Perhaps the most surprising success on defense has been inside linebacker Gary Plummer. Plummer lost his starting job in training camp, regained it in Week 3 and has led the team in tackles the past 4 games. He is not particularly big or fast and wasn’t drafted out of college.
But, Smith says, “He prepares real well. We’re a lot alike in that respect.”
False modesty isn’t defensive lineman Joe Phillips’ problem either. After the victory over the Rams, he matter-of-factly pointed out that the Rams “just couldn’t block us up front.” Then he said the Charger defense had been “laboring in anonymity” much of the season even though its personnel, “myself included,” was playing as well as well as any in the league. Phillips’ contribution cannot be underrated.
The Chargers list their defense as a 4-3. But on running downs, it effectively becomes a 5-2, with 6-6, 260-pound linebacker Keith Browner across from the tight end. “We still tell Keith he’s a down guy,” Lynn says. “The only difference is we took his paws off the ground.”
None of this is to give the impression that the Charger defense is the Chicago Bear defense or the Buffalo Bill defense. Too many free agents. Too many injuries. But that’s precisely the reason the coaching staff can take so much satisfaction from what it has accomplished.
And that’s precisely the kind of complacency Lynn refuses to allow.