Chargers Didn’t Lose Star, Just Their 4-13 Quarterback

As I understand it, the Chargers’ season is over. Not completed, mind you, just finished. History.

No 10-6 record against that custard schedule they earned for finishing last in the AFC West last year.

No 8-8 record for a long-awaited return to .500.

No 6-10, as had become habitual through the late 1980s.

Heavens, maybe not even a repeat of 1991’s meager 4-12.

Here it is, relatively early in August, and already the 1992 Chargers are swirling helplessly in the porcelain fixture. To hear it told, you can get your last glimpse of them if you race to the Cabrillo Monument and squint out to sea.

Goodby, 1992 Chargers.

You had a nice month, while it lasted.

Excuse me, but have I missed something?

I want to sort through this slowly, so I don’t lose perspective. Indeed, that’s what I’m actually seeking.

Perspective.

The Chargers’ starting quarterback, John Friesz, was injured in the second quarter of the Chargers’ opening exhibition game. This was one of the nastiest of knee injuries, thereby incapacitating Mr. Friesz for all of the 1992 season.

This was extremely unfortunate for John Friesz, a likable and talented young man. This was also extremely unfortunate for the Chargers, who had come to depend upon him.

However . . . it sounds like a dirty word as used here, but it works . . .

I repeat.

However . . .

If the hopes of the Chargers (and their fans) for rising to the .500 mark and even flirting with the playoffs were based on Mr. Friesz, they were dealing with dreams rather than reality.

Bear with me.

Friesz had been the Chargers’ starting quarterback since the last game of the 1990 season. This tenure, quite lengthy for a Charger quarterback in the post-Foutsian era, had reached 17 games at the conclusion of the 1991 season.

During that period, the Chargers were 4-13.

Obviously, we’re not talking about a playoff team suddenly without its catalyst. This is not exactly the Chicago Bulls losing Michael Jordan. This isn’t Laurel suddenly without Hardy or Ginger without Fred.

What the Chargers have lost is a nice young player with what they hoped would be a bright future. This was not a gimme. Nowhere was it cast in granite that this would be the year Friesz would develop into the guy who was going to lead them to the promised land.

Indeed, I thought this would be the year John Friesz made significant strides toward establishing himself as a solid quarterback in the National Football League. I thought his biggest problem probably would be overcoming a pool of wide receivers as shallow as a bird bath.

This won’t be the year, as it turns out, and that is too bad. It’s a tough loss for the Chargers, but it’s a tougher loss for Friesz.

And so the multitudes scream in anguish at the notion of this team being led by Bob Gagliano. Hogwash. He is probably as good as Friesz has been, which hasn’t been good enough . . . if we are to believe the inflated importance of what a quarterback does or doesn’t do.

It has been said that Bobby Beathard, the erstwhile genius in charge of assembling this team, should have known better than to have no one better than Gagliano in support of Friesz. In truth, if the Chargers had a veteran totally superior to Gagliano, he would have been the starter and Friesz would have been learning in a reserve role.

With three exhibition games to play before the start of the regular season, the Chargers are no more deficient at quarterback, even with Gagliano, than they are at wide receiver.

This quilt Beathard has been knitting has more than one hole.

Can the quarterback situation be improved? Of course. It could be improved before Friesz was injured. It could be improved by the acquisition of an established quarterback, rather than a young man whose future was based on hopes rather than history.

I have heard it said that now is the time for Alex Spanos to loosen his purse strings and show the world he wants to win. Now, at this moment of perceived desperation, I hear it is time for Spanos to spend what it takes to win.

Would someone like to tell me where he should be shopping? The best the Chargers could get would be someone else’s backup, and no team in its right mind is going to trade one of those guys if it’s lucky enough to have one with talent. If they’re not for sale, you can’t buy them.

The Chargers, thus, probably go into the 1992 season with no certainty what they might expect from the quarterback position.

This, however, is not a new development.

The same could have been said a week ago as well.