Chargers’ Schedule is Kind : Football: Indianapolis Colts to play the Chargers twice next season.
The Chargers’ 1992 schedule, which by NFL statistical standards looks like a walk in the park, begins with a home game against Kansas City and winds ever-so-kindly through such cities as Indianapolis, Cleveland and Tempe, Ariz.
The Chargers and Colts, based on the combined winning percentage of their 1992 opponents (.438), will play the easiest schedules in the league this season.
“Oh, come on,” Charger Coach Bobby Ross said. “Nothing is a cakewalk for us.”
The Chargers will play the Colts twice in 1992. And the Chargers are opening at home for the first time since 1986, when the Chargers blitzed Miami, 50-28. Only four teams on the Chargers’ schedule completed 1991 with a winning record.
The Chargers’ AFC Western Division mates, such as the Denver Broncos (.551), the Raiders (.543) and Chiefs (.543), will confront a much more demanding slate. While the Chargers take on last-place finishers such as Tampa Bay, Phoenix and Cincinnati, the Broncos and Raiders will play Washington, Buffalo, the New York Giants and Philadelphia.
“Indianapolis has got to be a helluva lot better,” Ross said. “The whole league is geared to parity of personnel, so I don’t think there is an easy team in the league. We happened to draw the fifth-place schedule, but that’s because we were in fifth place.
“From what I understand, over the last eight or nine years we have the worst record in the National Football League, so then how can anything be easy for us?”
The Chargers earned the favorable schedule by virtue of their fifth-place finish in the AFC West last season. The Broncos, who went 5-11 in 1990, feasted on the fifth-place schedule last season and improved to 12-4 on their way to winning the division title.
“I just looked through the first four games, to tell you the truth,” Ross said, “and I noticed three of them are against playoff teams. I think by the bye week (after the first five games), we’ll know whether or not we’re in the division race.”
General Manager Bobby Beathard said, “It’s kind of exciting with that opener (against the Chiefs). If that doesn’t get players excited, I don’t know what would. We get two division games right off the bat.”
The Chargers will play each of their 16 games on Sunday, and have not been on Monday night TV since 1986.
“I don’t think we can expect a Monday night game until we get to be the kind of team that they want to see on Monday night,” Beathard said.
The Chargers will play their first exhibition game for Ross in Tempe against the Cardinals on Aug. 8, and then will travel to New England for several days of practice with the Patriots before playing them Aug. 14. Ross will make his first appearance on the sideline in San Diego Jack Murphy Stadium on Aug. 21 against the San Francisco 49ers.
