Chargers Clobber Cleveland by Making Plays, Not Excuses

In a downtown hotel here Saturday night, Coach Dan Henning gathered his 0-2 Chargers together and sought to inspire them with Dennis Conner’s 1978 book, “No Excuse To Lose.”

Sunday, the Chargers awoke to chilly, breezy and rainy America’s Cup-like conditions and buoyed by the “it-was-meant-to-be” message from above, sailed past the Browns, 24-14, in front of 77,429 fans.

“I think Dennis Conner should take a bow for this win,” Henning said. “I met him on a flight back from New York in July and asked him to send me his book. We got to talking about some of the things he goes through to put a crew and challenge together, and I thought they were very poignant in relation to our stuff.

“The media and fans give you all kinds of reasons and excuses, like you’re too young, you haven’t been together long enough, your quarterback is not experienced enough. All those things are true, but it’s probably true for 20 other teams, too.

“I talked with the team about it. I told them I wasn’t going to give them any excuses, and they shouldn’t give themselves any. And I got that commitment from them.”

He also got:

--Touchdown passes of 19 and 23 yards from Billy Joe Tolliver to Anthony Miller.

--A game-turning, 69-yard interception return from linebacker Henry Rolling, setting up a one-yard scoring run by Rod Bernstine.

--A dog-gone-good pass rush on the Dawg Pound’s kennel master, Bernie Kosar, which forced the immobile one to throw three interceptions.

--A 42-yard, job-saving field goal to open the game’s scoring from Fuad Reveiz.

--Kickoff coverage that buried Eric Metcalf, who was averaging 34 yards a return, limiting him to 12.8 yards a carry.

--Outstanding individual performances from Marion Butts, Craig McEwen and Ronnie Harmon on offense and Lee Williams, Martin Bayless and Sam Seale on defense.

“No excuses, that’s what Coach Henning stressed to us the night before the game, and then again in the morning,” cornerback Gill Byrd said. “He said it was just time to win.”

Call it the Chargers’ newfangled commitment to excellence: Just win, baby.

“Any win’s great,” first-year Charger General Manager Bobby Beathard said. “It’s a real credit to these guys. They did something they weren’t able to do last week. They got behind, but came back to win.”

Down, 14-10, at halftime, the Chargers posted their first second-half points of the season against a defense that had not allowed a score in either the third or fourth quarters before this game.

And they did it by sticking with an erratic Tolliver at the controls.

“It’s been asked, when Billy’s struggling, do you change the quarterback?” Henning said. “Well, Billy wasn’t the only one struggling out there. We had some young people make some errors in movement, and we had some young people make some errors in routes, and even a veteran quarterback is going to look shaky under those conditions.”

Tolliver finished the day 12 of 29 for 139 yards with a pair of interceptions, and that was with a strong finish. At halftime, he was eight of 22 for 86 yards with those two interceptions, and no, Henning said, he never gave a thought to warming up Mark Vlasic.

“You got to keep plugging,” Tolliver said.

Tolliver’s first two passes Sunday were incomplete, and his third was intercepted by linebacker Mike Johnson and returned 64 yards for a touchdown.

Tolliver had set his sights on Miller downfield, but Miller was knocked off course, forcing Tolliver to rethink his position.

“Anthony got knocked down, so I started to scramble when I saw Butts,” Tolliver said. “As I went to throw to him, he turned and tried to block for me because he thought I was running. I could see right away what was going to happen, but big deal, we won.”

It was a big deal for a while, because Miller was hurt on the play. He was helped from the field after being poked in the eye but returned in a blink to give the Chargers a 10-7 lead midway through the second quarter.

While Tolliver had time to snack, Miller went up the middle, split double coverage and then reached out to haul in a Tolliver fastball for a 19-yard touchdown.

“He waited maybe a little longer than he should,” Henning said, “But Billy’s got the arm to do that.”

The Browns responded with a 90-yard drive and Leroy Hoard’s one-yard touchdown run with 1:55 to play to take a 14-10 halftime lead.

“This was a game that really reflects where our team is right now,” Henning said. “We’re struggling. We’ve got a guy at quarterback that’s capable of making big plays, and he also may make an error here and there.

“Defensively we’re capable of shutting people down, but then there are times when we have lapses, like just before the half when they went in to score. But at the end, the defense held on, and the offense socked it away.”

In the second half, Tolliver put the Chargers ahead to stay on a 23-yard strike over the middle to Miller.

“He was probably open early, but I thought I had to wait for him to get to the other side,” Tolliver said. “Fortunately he’s got such good football awareness, he was able to work himself over there.”

The Browns’ bid to stage a fourth-quarter rally, a la Dallas and Cincinnati the past two weeks, came to an abrupt and Rolling halt.

Kosar, who came into the game having thrown 145 consecutive passes without an interception, had faded back on third and 13 from the San Diego 32 only to find safety Martin Bayless on top of him.

“It’s a double safety blitz; we call it, ‘strike,’ ” Bayless said. “One of us is going to come free.”

Bayless was untouched and clobbered Kosar just as the quarterback let loose with a pass.

“I thought he fumbled and the ball had popped into the air,” Bayless said. “I didn’t know we intercepted the ball until I saw everyone running the other way.”

Rolling, playing in place of injured Billy Ray Smith, was in the right place and took Kosar’s interception and ran 69 yards before being run out of the bounds at the Cleveland six.

The Chargers scored three plays later on Bernstine’s one-yard lunge, and now the game rested on Kosar’s arm and the Chargers’ pass rush.

It was no contest. Of his final seven passes, five fell incomplete and another landed in the hands of Charger defensive back Joe Fuller. In the end, Kosar looked like a man who couldn’t wait to get to the safety of the locker room.

The Chargers, meanwhile, are headed home for a date with Houston with a new battle cry: “No more excuses,” Bayless said. “That’s our theme for the rest of the season. Everybody has weaknesses. Everybody is in the same boat, so just win. Just win.”