Hold the Nachos; Charger Defense Should Be More Appetizing

Gone are the days of the Chargers’ old bend-and-then-break defense, the one that turned third and long into a nail-biting adventure.

Billy Ray Smith played his first professional football for one of those porous Charger defenses in 1983. Dan Fouts was still Top Gun on offense, but that was a season in which games were won, 41-34 and 41-38, and lost, 41-29 and 34-31.

“That was a nachos-and-beer defense,” Smith said, “because everyone went for nachos and beer when the defense was on the field. They wanted to make it back to their seats before Dan got back onto the field.”

Indeed, that defense was painful to watch. Fortunately for concessionaires, it spent plenty of time on the field.

Those were the days when all the Chargers needed was an average defense, maybe even a mediocre one, to get to a Super Bowl. The offense was everything, and the defense was nothing.

This situation existed because the Chargers were the doves of the National Football League. They spent virtually nothing on defense and got what they invested in return.

From 1975 until 1983, not one first-round draft choice was expended on a defensive player. They even used a first-round pick on a center, but not one on a player whose expertise was in getting the ball back so the offense could play with it.

That changed in 1983.

Billy Ray Smith was the first player drafted. What’s more, defensive back Gill Byrd was selected later in that first round.

I was sitting with sportscaster Jim Laslavic, No. 54 during his playing days, when that number was draped on Billy Ray Smith on Draft Day ’83.

“Now,” Laslavic said, “there’s a chance my number will someday be retired.”

Smith was recognized then as a player with that kind of potential, and all he has done in six NFL seasons is fulfill that potential. But he has not done it with a defense that has gotten much attention, at least of a positive nature.

But that defense is coming of age. It’s fun to watch when the other guys have the ball, mainly because the other team doesn’t have much fun when it has the ball. Playing the Chargers is no longer as comfortable as a stroll on the beach.

Billy Ray Smith has been a very big part of the evolution.

“Basically, in 1983, we started concentrating on bringing in good defensive players,” Smith said. “Maybe we weren’t really emphasizing defense then, but at least it was starting to balance out.”

The brief coaching era of Al Saunders also came into play.

“When Coach Saunders took over, the philosophy of the entire team and the front office was that you win championships with defense,” Smith said. “There was emphasis on getting 11 guys out there who’d be strong across the board.”

Of course, with today’s situation substitutions, it takes more than 11 guys. No one in the NFL has 11 guys so strong and versatile that they can just put them out on the field and cover any imaginable circumstance. No team in the history of the NFL could do that against today’s offenses.

“When you play multiple defenses,” Smith said, “there are things in each scheme that certain players do well and certain things that they don’t do well. What we’re doing is making the scheme fit the personnel instead of the other way around.”

What the Chargers also have done, Smith said, is make their offense and defense compatible.

That was not the case earlier in his career, when a developing defense was paired with that aerial circus offense. The idea with such an inexperienced defense was to ask the offense to control the ball and give the defense a chance to regroup, but that was anything but a ball-control offense.

“That offense,” Smith said, “would score in five plays or give up the ball in five plays. The defense would be on the field for 40 minutes a game.”

Defensive units are interesting in that the better they are, the less they play. Their work is done when they force the opposition to give up the ball one way or the other, and this year’s defense has the look of a unit that will work quickly and efficiently.

This is the defense the Chargers need while the offense struggles to get itself into gear. A better defense will produce better field position for an offense that likely will be quite conservative in nature. It will give the offense a chance to be more productive than it might be on its own.

And this defense will also be relatively conservative in that it can line up personnel who can do a job. Weaker defenses must take chances.

There were times in the past, for example, when a Charger blitz would result in a big play for the opposition because it would expose a weak link somewhere in the defense.

“Exposed is a good word,” Smith said. “Sometimes, we were indecently exposed.”

But, Smith said, the 1989 Chargers will not have to overload one area and expose another.

“We don’t have to blitz,” he explained, “because we can get to the quarterback with our front four.”

So one area strengthens another back through this defense. We are no longer talking a nachos-and-beer defense. This is the meat and potatoes of the football team, and anything the offense can do will be dessert. In fact, with a very average offense, this could be a playoff contender.