Chargers Finally Get Serious
It’s beginning to feel a lot like crispness. Fall, late as usual, is in the air. Here it is, late October, and . . .
Believe it or not, the Chargers are about to play a meaningful football game.
No, no, no, please don’t order me a straitjacket or a breath test. I’m serious. I haven’t been sniffing glue.
Sunday’s date with the Denver Broncos is of considerable significance in many different ways. This is no Super Bowl, to be sure, nor is it a less-than-instant replay of some of those epic struggles of a decade ago, but it is an important steppingstone on this team’s path back to credibility.
Yes, yes, yes, the Chargers are a modest 2-4 and stand fourth out of five teams in the AFC West. That kind of record and that kind of standing are not likely to have the multitudes wearing Charger shirts to work, like they did in those good old days. It’s not a cure for the apathy ingrained by 10 years of mediocrity.
However, consider the statistical consequences of a Charger victory. They would move to 3-4 and Denver, the division leader, would drop to 5-3. And the flip side of this coin is that a loss would make these records 6-2 and 2-5 and drain any significance or interest from the remainder of the season.
See what I mean? It’s that big for these guys.
A Charger victory would move them to within one game of first place in the loss column. What’s more, Indianapolis comes to town next week while the Broncos, and the others in the AFC West, have a bye.
No matter how you look at it, no matter how skeptical you might be, the Chargers would suddenly be in the thick of the division race. This is a nice opportunity for Bobby Ross, a nice man, who started his tenure as Charger coach with four consecutive losses. And, by extension, it is a nice opportunity for his players.
“It’s a big game, a very big game,” Ross said this week. “We’re 2-4 and not really thinking about anything but getting out and playing, but this game can mean a lot to us. Our confidence level went up a little bit last week. We win this one and it’ll really go up. I’ve had discussions with our players as far as this being a big game.”
Consecutive victories over Seattle and Indianapolis might not be on par with batting around the likes of Miami or Washington, but the fact is that those were impressive outings with imaginative game plans and efficient execution. They stand as solid indications that this program is headed in the right direction.
Denver presents a hurdle of a different sort, but certainly not an insurmountable obstacle. The oddsmakers, for heaven’s sake, have this game listed as even. That’s either an acknowledgment that the Chargers are on an upswing or the Broncos are a bit of an illusion, probably a little of both.
You see, you take one player out of the Denver lineup, and Denver is exactly like everybody else, or maybe worse. To beat the Broncos, the Chargers cannot do something stupid like take a six-point lead into the final minute and let John Elway have the ball in what to him is prime field position. To him, prime field position is anywhere in the stadium.
The problem, as I see it, is that the Chargers have caught the worst of luck in this, their biggest week of the 1992 season. They have to chase Elway without the injured Leslie O’Neal. That’s a little bit like trying to win a chess match when your opponent has his or her queen and you don’t. Maybe Junior Seau, who was out with an injury last week, will be healthy enough to be quick enough to compensate for O’Neal’s absence.
Should the Chargers succeed in exposing Elway as a mere mortal and thus defeat Denver, they would do something else besides scratch and claw themselves back into the race.
They would create a stirring of interest and maybe even credibility in the community.
“The perception of us in San Diego is not real good,” Ross conceded. “I understand that. I’ve heard that for a while. It’s probably gotten worse since I’ve been here.”
Why does he say that?
“We had the smallest crowd we’ve had in a long time,” he said. “That’s all I can base it on.”
That would have been the crowd of 36,783 for Seattle, which was the smallest gathering since 26,339 had nothing better to do for the 1988 season finale against Kansas City.
It’s nothing personal, as it relates to Ross, but rather disappointment piled upon disappointment over the last 10 years. And the fans are not likely to abandon their beach towels for this game and this 2-4 team.
The truth is that it takes more than back-to-back victories against a couple of sad-sack teams to get the attention of folks so long accustomed to looking the other way.
It takes a game like the one coming up.