Chargers Control Cardinals
The Chargers will play for a share of first place next Sunday in Denver. That’s improbable enough. But all of a sudden, they are blocking, tackling, talking and thinking like a team that can beat the Broncos.
This is the same team that gave up 77 points and 785 yards in losing its first two games. But the Chargers insist it is not the same team that started 2-2 last year before lurching to a 6-10 finish.
“This is just a much better football team,” Steve Ortmayer, the director of football operations, said Sunday after the Chargers had come from behind to beat the Phoenix Cardinals, 24-13, at Sun Devil Stadium. “This team can move the football and not turn it over.”
“The difference between this year and last?” said Charger cornerback Gill Byrd. “This team has Jim McMahon and a winning attitude. He’s a leader. And it shows.”
It was McMahon who figured out how to solve the overstacked Cardinal defense that limited the Chargers to 80 yards of offense in the first half. It was McMahon who beat the blitz with a 16-yard touchdown pass to wide receiver Anthony Miller in the third period that gave the Chargers their first lead, 7-6.
It was McMahon who completed 15 of 23 passes for 188 yards. And it was McMahon who threw no interceptions.
Asked to assess McMahon’s performance, Charger Coach Dan Henning said: “He won.”
So much for football being a 45-man game.
McMahon’s zero-defect quarterbacking enabled the Chargers to enjoy a 4-0 edge in turnovers. Defensive backs Roy Bennett and Gill Byrd each intercepted Cardinal quarterback Gary Hogeboom. Linebacker Billy Ray Smith recovered two fumbles.
Smith returned the first one 15 yards for a touchdown after a Byrd hit separated Cardinal fullback Earl Ferrell from the ball. According to Smith, it was the first touchdown he has scored since “I was 8 years old and caught a pass from my brother in Dickie Winders’ driveway. It was right on the asphalt. I skinned my elbow. It was wicked.”
Sunday’s Smith touchdown gave the Chargers a 21-13 lead with 12 minutes and 50 seconds to play. And, said Henning, “It gave us the cushion to play the way we wanted to.”
When Chris Bahr added a 37-yard field goal--his first three-point attempt of the year--with 4:17 remaining, the Chargers’ cushion grew to 11.
In its last two games the Charger defense has taken the ball away nine times. The Charger offense hasn’t turned it over once. The Charger defense limited Phoenix to 69 yards rushing and underscored how much the Cardinals miss injured Stump Mitchell, their best back.
Hogeboom finished with 22 completions in 43 tries for 261 yards, including a 59-yard scoring bomb to Roy Green 9 1/2 minutes into the third period. But the Chargers sacked him four times and hurried his throws all day long.
“I don’t know why our running game didn’t get started,” Hogeboom said. “I’ll have to look at the film.”
Larry Beightol, the Chargers’ offensive line coach, said McMahon didn’t need to look at the film to figure out an antidote to the Cardinal defense that was shifting an extra linebacker to the strong formation side of the field in the first half. During that span the Chargers, who entered the game ranked third in the league in average gain per rush, ran for a miserable 30 yards. Six of the Chargers’ first seven possessions ended in punts.
So McMahon started checking off to the other side. And the ground game began to flow. It produced 73 yards in the second half and helped set up the pass.
Before Miller’s touchdown, Phoenix had built a 6-0 lead on field goals of 36 and 33 yards by Al Del Greco. But when Cardinal cornerback Carl Carter slipped and fell midway through the third period, McMahon and Miller hooked up on a 47-yard completion and a first down at the Phoenix 19.
Three plays later, Carter stumbled over teammate Marcus Turner, leaving Miller all alone in the end zone.
The Cardinals (2-2) knew they would have problems without Mitchell and defensive end Freddie Joe Nunn, suspended last week for violations of the NFL’s substance abuse policies.
But, said fullback Ron Wolfley before the game, “We’ve pretty much just got to believe we’ve got dandruff and brush it off.”
Maybe the Cardinals should change shampoos. Right now, the Chargers are head and shoulders better than they are. But the Chargers will have to be even better than that if they hope to beat the Broncos (3-1) in Denver.
“We’re 2-2 and I don’t know how good that is,” said a cautious Henning. “We’re still, in my opinion, a ways away from where we want to be.”
“We’re not sky high or amazed,” said Pro Bowl defensive end Lee Williams, who had two of the Chargers’ four sacks. “But playing for first place . . . that’s interesting and something new.”
After Green burned Byrd and Glenn on his touchdown--it was the 60th scoring catch of his career, tying Sonny Randle for first on the Cardinal career list--the Chargers regained the lead on a two-yard run by rookie Marion Butts. It was his fifth touchdown in four games.
And it came one play after a holding penalty against Cardinal Ken Harvey on a 21-yard Bahr field goal that would have made it, 13-10, Phoenix. Henning chose to take the points off the board in favor of a first-and-goal at the Phoenix two. Butts’ score made Henning look like a sage.
By the end of the afternoon, the injury-riddled Cardinals looked more like sage brush.
Charger Notes
Charger left tackle Joel Patten left Sunday’s game in the third period with a sprained knee. He did not return. Moments later, wide receiver Quinn Early sprained his right knee and did not return. . . . The Sun Devil Stadium temperature at game time was 97 degrees, which made it the third-hottest game in Charger regular-season history. Charger linebacker Billy Ray Smith said the Charger defense was fresher at the end of the game than the Cardinal defense. “We could see that they were cramping up,” Smith said. “We just wanted to get them back on the field.” . . . The Chargers’ time of possession edge in the second half was 18:01 to 11:59. . . . The 1988 Charger team, which also lost its first two games and won its next two, went on to drop its next six. . . . Charger punter Hank Ilesic, in only his second game with the team, averaged 41 yards for nine kicks. His longest was 55 yards, his shortest 14. He punted three balls out of bounds inside the Cardinal 20. . . . Marion Butts led the Chargers in rushing with 26 yards on nine carries. Rod Bernstine led them in receiving with five catches for 51 yards. Phoenix’s J.T. Smith, who entered the game as the league’s leading receiver, caught 11 passes for 123 yards.