ANALYSIS : Chargers Need Attitude Change : Football: Henning needs to inspire more enthusiasm if he wants to start winning.
You will be pleased to learn today that the Chargers have figured out why they stink.
No enthusiasm, suggested Coach Dan Henning.
And you thought it was a case of no offense. Or too little defense.
If women sports writers hadn’t made locker-room visitation such an issue recently, the team’s lack of enthusiasm could have been immediately addressed by the Charger Cheerleaders.
But instead the team has decided to install bulletin boards in both the players’ lounge and the training room. Today they will begin pinning up inflammatory headlines and stories from New York’s newspapers to inspire the boys.
The New York Post story about the “Headless Man In Topless Bar,” would have certainly caught the attention of the Charger gladiators, but club officials said they will be clipping only sports stories about the Jets this week.
Hanging sports pages on the locker-room wall at this point to promote enthusiasm, however, is like flashing up-to-date stock market prices in a cemetery. You may have a captive audience, but don’t expect much reaction.
You would have to give Boston a better chance of winning the playoffs than these guys salvaging the season. The Jets never looked so good.
By all appearances, this team has become numb to defeat. They don’t even get mad at sports writers any more. Five weeks into their 16-week-long working year and they are going through the motions. Would someone please wake up Sleepy Floyd?
Some of the players were quoted as saying they were flat Sunday in Pittsburgh. Burt Grossman wasn’t even funny. Gary Plummer said the team had no enthusiasm. Leslie O’Neal said it had no confidence.
Stockton seismologists were probably the first ones to record Alex Spanos’ reaction after he read those comments.
All of it, however, seems to have gone by Henning. He dismissed the comments of his players after Sunday’s game--and every game to be played--by saying, “I’ve been in post-game locker rooms for 30 years, and the thing you have to guard against most of all is the reaction of an individual or group after a disappointing game. I know comments, pro or con, after a win or a loss are most of the time out of whack.”
Might that also include what the head coach has to say?
When it came to Monday’s post-mortem, the head coach blamed his team’s defensive woes in part on the influence of the media.
“Last week there was an obvious lack of concern about it (the defense) in the media which transfers over to your players,” Henning said. “I went to our coaches and players and told them that wasn’t my opinion, that they need to be more concerned about it.”
He should have canceled the players’ newspaper subscriptions.
It’s become obvious that Henning needs to do something to turn this season around. Obvious, it seems, to everyone but Henning.
He said he will do very little differently this week. If there are any changes to be made, he said, they will probably not be noticed by most.
The defense will be simplified, he said, and it needs to play better. The offense will be guided again by Billy Joe Tolliver, and it needs to play better. No shouting, no chairs thrown, no players fired.
No sparks and no spark.
“We’re going to go back to work with the players we chose,” Henning said, “and we’re going to find out if the players we chose have the heart and character to go back to work and get it better.”
If these players really do have heart and character, how come they opted to not use it during the first five weeks of the season?
The Chargers are dead in the water, and Henning is missing the boat. They are waiting for a kick in the pants, and the professor is going back to the drawing board to fiddle with his Xs and Os.
Another team might right itself in a players-only meeting or take offense at being called names by every 7-Eleven clerk in Southern California, but this team is young and ever-changing. There is no leader in this locker room.
The quarterback is too inexperienced and erratic to take command, and the organization has no faith in his backup. The defense has a tough guy in Joe Phillips, but he’s on the mend. It also has Billy Ray Smith, but he remains out of uniform with a stomach muscle injury.
The onus, therefore, is on the head coach to do something.
“Even if we get all the parts fixed, the Xs and the Os,” General Manager Bobby Beathard said, “and simplify or do all these things, that’s great. If Dan and the coaches feel that has to be done . . .
“But you still don’t win without fire. That burning desire to beat the hell out of the next opponent,” he said. “You line up every team in the league, and we aren’t at the bottom talent-wise. We have an inexperienced quarterback, but that’s even more of a reason to play with enthusiasm, to overcome that.”
A victory against the Jets Sunday in New York, and the Chargers come home needing no inspiration in next week’s game with the Raiders. But you wonder, do the Chargers have a pulse?
“Watching the Broncos and Browns Monday night was a great example of enthusiasm at work,” Beathard said. “I really enjoyed watching that game. It got my blood going seeing guys exhibit that enthusiasm. That’s what football is all about.
“No game is a fun game to watch when guys aren’t playing that way. I think it’s essential. You have to play better than you are. I’d love to see us play with that kind of fire, and see what kind of team this is.”
As a team, the Chargers have been going their individual ways. Ronnie Harmon is upset because he isn’t being used. And Rod Bernstine is upset because he isn’t being used. Quinn Early’s upset because suddenly he seems unwanted. Ditto Mark Vlasic.
Junior Seau is playing out of position, and has yet to accept it. Plummer is playing out of position because Seau has to play where Plummer lined up last season. Lee Williams is mad because he’s playing defensive tackle when he knows he was the best defensive end in the AFC.
It’s time for Henning to pull it all together. Time for him to get the players’ attention. Time to find common ground and rally the troops before he’s forced to surrender.