Seahawks Get Drop on Chargers : Pro football: Cox’s fumbles hand Seattle a 13-10 victory in overtime.

If the Chargers still intend to go to the playoffs, it appears they now will need tickets.

On a night in which they had talked about starting a five-game winning streak, the Chargers went belly up to the Seattle Seahawks, 13-10, in overtime in front of an national-television audience and 50,097 fans in San Diego Jack Murphy Stadium.

In hindsight, it will be a game no more costly than the one lost the Chargers (5-7) lost in Dallas on a fake punt. But for now, it is their season.

“It’s an empty feeling,” safety Vencie Glenn said. “We’ve lost some games since I’ve been here, but this one hurts a little more than any other. It’s a game we had won; a game we shouldn’t have lost.”

It was all but over. The Chargers were ahead 10-3, had the ball, and had Marion Butts, who ran for 128 yards on 28 carries. They were t-h-a-t close to really start talking about playoff possibilities.

But on second and nine at the Seattle 49-yard line with just a little more than 10 minutes to play, quarterback Billy Joe Tolliver threw an interception. He was throwing for the sidelines, he explained, but accuracy has not been his forte.

“If you want to start pointing fingers,” he said, “you don’t have to point it any further than that interception. You can sit here and second guess till hell freezes over, but the interception left them back in the game.”

Seattle’s Eugene Robinson intercepted Tolliver’s pass at the Seattle 30, returned it to the San Diego 40, and 10 plays later, Derrick Fenner dived over from the one and the game was tied.

And still it was the Chargers’ game to win.

“I thought we were going to win it,” defensive end Burt Grossman said. “We were in field goal range, and then the fumble happened . . . I’ve never seen anything like this game.”

The Chargers had marched back and were on the Seahawks’ 32-yard line and in position to attempt a game-winning field goal with less than a minute to play. All they had to do was inch the ball forward, and more than that, hold onto the football.

But after catching a short pass from Tolliver at the 25, tight end Arthur Cox fumbled at the 21, and the ball was recovered by Seattle’s Jacob Green. On to overtime.

The Chargers won the toss in overtime, but were pushed back to their 12 after drawing a holding call on the kickoff. Business as usual, it seems.

Then on third and six from his 16, Tolliver went looking for that man Cox again.

Cox, who already had cost the Chargers a chance at scoring a first-half touchdown with a personal foul at the Seattle 1, took a short pass from Tolliver and wrapped two hands around the ball before being hit by James Jefferson. Two hands, however, were not enough.

“I feel for Arthur,” offensive tackle Broderick Thompson said. “He just had a bad night.”

Some players, however, don’t make as many mistakes in a career as Cox did in one important night. Cox fumbled again, the ball was recovered by Seattle linebacker Rufus Porter at the San Diego 23, and three plays later on came kicker Norm Johnson.

“I was a lot more confident at the end of the game than at the beginning,” Johnson said. “But it’s like Coach Chuck Knox says, ‘Luck is the residue of design.’ ”

In other words, let the other team get the ball to Cox, and then force him to fumble.

Johnson, who had hit from 26 yards after a 36-yard miss in the first half, was good from 40 yards.

“That obviously is a tough one to take,” Coach Dan Henning said. “We should have been the ones letting the clock run down and kicking the field goal at the end of the game.”

Blame it on Cox. He is the Chargers’ resident thug, and on most Sundays the team finds his extracurricular push and shoves endearing.

Last week he drew a 15-yard penalty for unnecessary roughness after kicking the defender who tackled him. Later, Henning all but defended him, saying Cox’s indiscretion was no worse than what the Chiefs were doing.

But in the second quarter against the Seahawks, Cox finally went too far even by Henning’s standards. After Butts had been stopped for no gain at the Seattle one-yard line on first and goal, Cox was hit with a 15-yard penalty for a personal foul.

The Chargers were shoved back to the Seattle 16-yard line, and had to eventually settle for a 3-0 lead on John Carney’s 20-yard field goal.

Cox offered no explanation after the game because, as he has done all season, he refused to talk. Asked if he had received an explanation from Cox, Henning said, “No matter what happened he shouldn’t be flagged for a personal foul.

“If somebody gets in his face or taunts him or whatever happened, we can’t afford that. It puts us back into a position where we have to kick a field goal instead of getting a touchdown. I don’t need an explanation; what I need is people that don’t get 15-yard penalties.”

The Seahawks (5-6) took advantage of another Charger gift to tie the game 3-3 at halftime. Chris Warren fumbled John Kidd’s punt in the final minute of the second quarter, and Kidd recovered only to fumble the ball right back to the Seahawks at the San Diego 47-yard line.

Seattle went ahead and cashed the turnover into a Johnson 26-yard field goal with five seconds left in the half.

“When you have that many turnovers you are going to be in trouble,” Henning said. “We fought through it and we came back and then we got more turnovers.”

The Chargers had come back to break the 3-3 tie in the third quarter with a 10-play drive covering 82 yards. Tolliver, who finished the game 15 for 22 for 145 yards, completed four passes in a row on the drive, including an eight-yard touchdown strike to Cox on third and six.

“Our guys battled back; they’ve been doing that all year,” Knox said. “We always try to strip the ball; we just haven’t been getting it lately.”

They took it from Cox twice, however, and now while the Seahawks contemplate their playoff chances, the Chargers can make plans for next year.

“One person doesn’t win a game for you, and one person doesn’t lose a game for you,” cornerback Gill Byrd said. “I have faith in these guys. We’ll bounce back. Coach Henning won’t allow us not to bounce back.”

Said Butts: “We’re not dead.”

The Chargers stay home to tackle the Jets whom, like the Seahawks, they already have beaten this season.

“This game will be a disappointing thing for this team and it’s going to take a lot for them to muster it up and come back,” Henning said. “I told them that this is going to be a big test for them. This game meant a lot.”

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