CHARGER REVIEW : NOTEBOOK : This Is as Bad as It Gets . . . They Hope

Let’s be positive.

It can’t get any worse, right?

“You never know how low you can go,” linebacker Leslie O’Neal said. “Hey, Dallas went 1-15 last year.”

Come on, the Chargers can’t sink any lower, can they?

“Yeah, there’s a lot of games left,” quarterback Billy Joe Tolliver said. “Damn right you can, but it’s up to us now. It’s in the players’ hands now. We gotta decide we want to do it.”

Presumably, they won’t put it to a vote.

The Chargers said starting left guard Courtney Hall injured his hamstring on the team’s first series, but did he also bump his head?

“We’re only 1-4, and if we go on a 11-game winning streak, we’re 12-4,” he said. On a stack of bibles, he was not smiling. “There have been weirder things happen in the league.”

Name one, besides Babe Laufenberg being a starting NFL quarterback at one time.

“You can’t give up,” he said. “There will always be a next week.”

That’s encouraging.

The Chargers’ highly touted defense has gone into the dumper amid suggestions from some players that the team was flat Sunday.

“I don’t know why you would ever be flat when you only have 16 opportunities a year to play,” defensive coordinator Ron Lynn said. “If in fact we were, then we have to go back and evaluate our preparation for the game, and we’ll start with myself and go from there.

“In my opinion, it’s a grave situation at this point.”

Coach Dan Henning seemed surprised by the idea.

“If they are flat, they shouldn’t be flat,” he said. “They’ve been given every opportunity not to be flat. I don’t know after losing last week that they should be flat.”

In the first half, the Steelers lost starters’ Rod Woodson, Bubby Brister, Thomas Everett and Tim Worley with injuries and then came back in the second half to outscore the Chargers, 19-7.

Starting Charger safety Vencie Glenn left the field on crutches after spraining his ankle in the final few seconds.

Henning has made it abundantly clear: The Chargers will rise and fall with Billy Joe Tolliver at quarterback.

And as Tolliver goes, so may go Henning.

That leaves Mark Vlasic, who is 2-1 as a starter in the NFL, standing on the sideline.

“I feel confident in my ability, and I always have,” said Vlasic. “I know I can get the job done whatever the situation. I have to believe that.

“I just sat here with a guy from one of my hometown newspapers, and he was saying something about going in and switching quarterbacks. But if the shoe was on the other foot, I’d want to be the guy left in the game. You can’t get into a situation where the guy that’s in there is coming off the field looking over his shoulder.”

Does Tolliver expect a quarterback controversy this week? “That’s not up to me,” he said.

Defensive lineman Burt Grossman knocked Tim Worley out of the game with an ankle-high tackle and took the team lead in sacks with 4 1/2 after dropping Rick Strom, but Grossman is now 0-2 in Pittsburgh against the Steelers.

“All the hype was that they were 1-3 and hadn’t scored a touchdown, and then they go and manhandle us,” Grossman said. “It wasn’t like we played a close-fought game, and they beat us in the last second. They manhandled us.”

Grossman was offsides by a good four yards in the second quarter, but when the officials went public with the indictment, they gave Henry Rolling’s number.

Henning twice had the chance to send in newly signed kicker John Carney for long field-goal attempts, but he declined.

Down, 17-7, in the final three minutes of the first half, Henning opted to have John Kidd punt the ball from the Steeler 35 rather than attempt a 52-yard field goal or go for the first down on fourth and five.

“We were going against the wind, and I didn’t think we could kick a field goal,” Henning said. “(Going for the first down) was considered.”

Donnie Elder caught Kidd’s punt on the fly, downing the ball at the Steeler 2. Pittsburgh then ran out the clock.

In the third quarter, the Chargers trailed, 24-7, and it was fourth and 12. Henning had his troops go for the first down, but Tolliver’s pass was intercepted at the three by Carnell Lake.

“I thought we needed a touchdown, and we were going in the same direction and the field goal was not exactly within our reach at that point,” Henning said. “We were outside the 30-yard line.”

Wrong. The Chargers were parked on the 27, and that would have left Carney with a 44-yarder. In the first and fourth quarters, Pittsburgh’s Gary Anderson was successful in that direction from 45.

In the Steeler locker room:

Tunch Ilkin, Steeler offensive lineman, on the end of their offensive drought: “We’ve all been taking a lot of heat, but let’s face it, since we’re offensive lineman, we take most of the heat. Linemen don’t get respect when you’re winning, so you can imagine how we’re thought of when we’re losing.”

Steeler Coach Chuck Noll on their surprising offensive showing: “There’s no question we needed this one for everybody’s psyche. You can have all the X’s and O’s, but what you need is people to knock people on their fannies--to block, tackle, and run very hard. We got that, and we should be proud of that.”