Secondary Not Complaining About Effort

The irony of the Chargers’ 17-14 victory did not escape any member of the secondary.

Krieg threw for 142 yards and one touchdown in a 20-9 Seattle victory over the Chargers.

Sunday, he riddled the same secondary for 376 yards, the most allowed by Chargers this season, but the result was different.

Strong safety Martin Bayless understood the statistical differences, but wasn’t about to apologize for anything.

“I don’t care if would have thrown for 700 yards, it didn’t make a difference today,” he said. “We won the game.

“We’ve played well enough to win enough times where we came up on the short end. I don’t feel sorry for them. Nobody feels sorry for us when we lose that way.”

Cornerback Gill Byrd, like Bayless, was not about to let Krieg’s statistics ruin a victory.

“Yeah, he threw for a lot of yards, but we made the plays when we had to,” said Byrd, who intercepted his sixth pass of the season on the last play of the game.

Byrd said the defense’s numbers have been stressed too much all season.

“We had the fifth-ranked defense last year, but we were 6-10, so who cares,” he said. “I’d rather have the 20th-ranked defense and be 10-6 and going into the playoffs.”

Still, Byrd said he was not proud that Krieg completed 28 of 38 passes against the secondary. Byrd was especially disturbed about one particular play.

He was burned badly on a game-tying 20-yard touchdown pass by Seattle’s Jeff Chadwick in the corner of the end zone.

“If you’re playing cornerback, you’re going to get beat,” Byrd said. “He put a good move on me. It was a out and up route and he beat me good. I felt real bad about it.”

But unlike previous weeks, Byrd said the defense made up for its mistakes.

“We created things today,” he said. “He got to us. But we didn’t sit back waiting for things to happen. For once we made the plays.”