Chargers Sing Same Refrain : Football: Players, coaches offer no new clues to growing problem of defensive breakdowns.

Ever hear this one before?

“It’s not the scheme,” Junior Seau, a Chargers linebacker, said Monday. “It’s not the coaches. It’s the players that need to get better. We’re not playing as a team and that has to change. It’s one breakdown or another every week.”

Give the Chargers credit: they have become a very consistent team over the first four weeks of the season.

Not only are their losses and problem areas similar, even the explanations are hard to differentiate from week to week.

If only the Chargers could come together on defense like they have on their answers.

Summarizing his defense’s faults in the aftermath of a 27-19 loss to Denver Sunday, Chargers Coach Dan Henning sounded very much like he did after the season-opening loss at Pittsburgh.

“Sometimes we don’t cover the right guys,” he said. “Sometimes we don’t get into the right gap. Sometimes, because the other team makes an outstanding play and sometimes because we’re not skillful enough to cover the great receiver. And sometimes because there is a lack of communication value among the young players.”

Strong safety Martin Bayless, one of the older players at 28, was inserted in the lineup two weeks ago to improve the communication value. Instead, Henning said Bayless fell into the category of not being skilled enough on one of Sunday’s most critical plays--Gaston Green’s 63-yard touchdown run early in the fourth quarter.

Henning said it was Bayless’ responsibility to stop Green from making a big play.

“Martin’s got to come up and make that tackle,” Henning said. “He took a bad angle and got outrun. He’s not one of our fastest players, which is why we’re trying to play Anthony Shelton.”

So how is it the Charger defense is still having the same breakdowns it had in Week 1?

“The communication should be better and it’s not,” Henning said. “The coverage problems should be done in the first game of the season. There is no time ever that you should not be covering a man that is supposed to be covered.”

Bayless agrees, but he said talking about the problems will not solve them.

“The situation speaks for itself,” he said. “There’s no excuse and there’s a reason for that, we’re not playing well. The bottom line is, it’s up to us to decide whether we’re going to get the ship rolling or sink with it.”

At this point, the ship appears to be sinking fast. The Chargers have dropped seven consecutive games, including the last three of the exhibition season.

“You couldn’t have told me that we’d have lost all those games,” said Bayless, who is in his fifth year with the Chargers. “But that’s just the way it is. Something has to change, but who knows what it is?”

Bayless said a coaching change is not the answer.

“The only people who know are people in those blue and white jerseys,” he said. “We have to come up with something in order to win. Nobody else outside the organization or within it can do that. It has to be those 45 people they select to go out on that field on Sunday.”

General Manager Bobby Beathard reiterated that a coaching change will not be forthcoming. Even though the trading deadline is two weeks away, Beathard said he has no trades in the works.

And Beathard said he has no new solutions to the old problems. He wouldn’t point a finger at the defense, which remains last in the NFL.

“It’s the whole thing,” he said. “We’re having problems in a lot of areas. But every problem we have seems to be related to winning. I see improvement in some areas, but it’s not even worth talking about because people only care about us winning games.”

Does Beathard wonder if people in San Diego care at all anymore?

“I think the frustration is obvious throughout the city,” he said. “I don’t know if people care anymore. That goes up and down with winning.”

The Chargers’ eight players on injured reserve are eligible to come off this week. Henning said wide receiver Kitrick Taylor and guard Mike Zandofsky are the leading candidates to be placed on the active roster.

Taylor, who has had a bad knee, said he is 100% healthy.

“They haven’t told me anything, but it’s a good possibility that I would be activated,” he said. “I’m ready to go.”

With Anthony Miller nursing a sore hamstring the last two weeks, the Chargers have been down to two healthy receivers: rookie Shawn Jefferson and Nate Lewis. H-back Craig McEwen has been filling in at receiver and rookie Yancey Thigpen was activated last week.

Lewis was knocked out momentarily by Denver safety Dennis Smith, but Henning said he will be ready to play Sunday at home against Kansas City.

“Nate’s fine,” Henning said. “If he was given a standing-eight count, he would have been able to come back.”