Don’t Blame Charger Defense

Junior Seau barely made it a fourth of the way up the ramp leading to the San Diego Charger locker room before he had to stop.

He bent over and put his hands on his knees. It was as if the weight of trying to carry the Chargers for this whole season had gotten to him. The linebacker who turns up in the middle of so many plays, making every effort to win, had to summon up some more energy just to make it to the locker room.

And this was the image of a guy who says he is taking it well.

Sunday’s game against the Oakland Raiders was another example of the lost cause that is the Chargers’ season. Another day when the defense did its job and a halfway decent offensive output would have provided a victory.

But the Chargers have scored more than 17 points only three times this season. Eighteen would have been enough to beat the Colts in Indianapolis on Oct. 4. A mere eight would have made the difference in a loss in Oakland on Oct. 11.

And again Sunday, 18 would have been enough. Instead it was a 17-10 loss, San Diego’s 10th defeat in 15 games. “It’s the same song and dance,” Seau said. “At the same time, you’re not going to get me down. I’m going to have my humor come Monday.”

Don’t expect strong safety Rodney Harrison to smile any time soon.

“I don’t know if I’ve ever felt this low in my whole professional career,” Harrison said.

This came from a man who just made the Pro Bowl for the first time in his five years in the league.

“It’s a team effort,” Harrison said. “If one aspect of the team plays well and the other doesn’t, we still lose.”

This is the flip side to UCLA’s football season, in which the defense cost the offense a shot at the national championship. Except this might be an even more helpless feeling.

You always had the sense that UCLA’s offense could score as many points as it took to win the game. For the most part it did, and almost came through even when the defense allowed 49 points at Miami.

And when things went wrong on defense, it wasn’t too unreasonable to put the ball in Cade McNown’s hands and ask him to make it right.

The reverse would be to expect the defense to throw a shutout at the other team every week, or pull out games with interceptions and fumble returns.

Not quite as simple.

The defense’s job description is to make things easier for the offense, and that’s what the Chargers did.

Entering Sunday’s game they had allowed an average of 260.8 yards per game, including 71.1 yards against the run. Both figures led the league.

Even in last week’s 38-17 loss at Seattle, 14 of the Seahawk points were scored on turnover returns against the San Diego offense.

The Charger defense ought to run balls back themselves. Mere turnovers aren’t enough. They came up with an interception and a fumble on two of Oakland’s first three drives. All San Diego had to show for it was a 3-0 lead.

They soon found themselves down, 14-3.

The offense kept getting chances it didn’t deserve. After a San Diego incomplete pass on fourth and one with 3 1/2 minutes left in the game, the defense held and the Raiders had to punt. Tony Gaiter returned it 48 yards to the Oakland 37.

Two minutes and 42 seconds remained. The Chargers trailed by seven. Only 37 yards to go.

The outnumbered Charger fans in a Qualcomm Stadium crawling with Raider fans didn’t ask for too much. They didn’t need heroics of the John Elway/Joe Montana magnitude. Just 37 yards.

They couldn’t get one.

Craig Whelihan threw an interception on the first play, and that was that.

There’s one area in which the Chargers differ from UCLA, and that’s in the way they are handling this disparity in accomplishments.

Of course the defense isn’t happy. But the players aren’t lashing out directly at their offensive counterparts.

When Harrison recently called out some teammates for not giving sufficient effort, he didn’t name names, positions or even sides of the ball.

The statistics would show what he meant.

And sometimes the most effective statement can be silence, such as the 15-second pause by Harrison after he was asked if the team had any confidence in the two quarterbacks--the inexperienced Ryan Leaf and the inept Whelihan.

“There’s not a lot of things that we really have confidence in right now,” Harrison said. “I mean, can it get worse?”

As for Seau, he simply said that that it takes offense, defense and special teams to win. From there, it didn’t take much imagination to determine which facet he thought was lacking.

“I’ll never belittle a player,” Seau said. “I’ll never talk down on any of my players or any player in the National Football League. I’m going to have to sit back and see how everything falls out. As we stand here today, I think we played well enough on defense to do the things that we need to do in the National Football League. That’s a credit to a lot of the guys. Under the circumstances, I take my hat off to the defensive players.”

Under the circumstances, he couldn’t be blamed for taking his shoe off to the offensive players. And throwing it at them.