Chargers Deserve a Portion of Blame

Being somewhat of an expert at piling on, I recognize that Charger quarterback Ryan Leaf has been the mother lode of opportunity.

Leaf, of course, remains immature, troubled and seemingly determined to throw away the golden opportunity to play football, but there are some things here that do not compute.

For example, Leaf has been suspended for four weeks for yelling obscenities at Charger General Manager Bobby Beathard, the very thing most San Diego-area fans are now doing daily.

The Chargers are a disaster, have been a disaster and will continue to be one, but reading and listening to all accounts in San Diego, Leaf seems to blame.

The morning newspaper’s top headline in the sports section the other day read, “Source: Leaf Hates Beathard, Wants Out.” Anyone who has talked to Beathard in recent months could have written the headline, “Source: Beathard Hates Leaf, Wants Him Out.”

San Diego disc jockeys have been calling Leaf’s answering machine while on the air and leaving messages “for the crybaby.” A little more than a year ago, the Chargers were 2-0 under Leaf’s leadership and the same radio shows were proclaiming him San Diego’s newest hero.

As everyone knows, there is no crying in baseball, and no criticizing your own teammates in football.

Players are suspended for drug use in the NFL, arrested for driving under the influence or battering the women in their lives, and they return to work with across-the-board support--no matter how misplaced. Nice to have you with us, Lawrence Phillips. . . . Any day now Leon Lett should be back. . . . Bam Morris has done his time.

Erik Kramer has started the last four games at quarterback for the Chargers, thrown nine interceptions, had a fumble returned for a touchdown and has not thrown a touchdown pass. But no one on his team has stood up and said, “Bench the lug.”

But for the last year, Charger linebacker Junior Seau has been publicly calling Leaf “Baby Boy.” The name fits, of course, but Seau has repeatedly broken locker-room tradition, using his role as team leader to tell the media that Leaf must grow up.

Teammates like Rodney Harrison, taking the lead from Seau, are now regular contributors to the local newspapers when it comes to Leaf, like parental experts called on by Oprah.

Putting the heat on Leaf, of course, takes it off the employees who have been outscored the last two weeks, 65-3, and have lost 22 of their last 31 games.

None of this mitigates Leaf’s boorish behavior. A lifetime of poor training and an $11-million bonus check to reinforce it are tough to overcome. But how odd that the Chargers would elect to embrace tough love now.

They chose to suspend him for four weeks while he can’t throw a football effectively because of a shoulder still healing from surgery. Coincidentally, he was expected back, ready for competition, in about four weeks.

The Chargers’ approach with Leaf has been like two parents, one who reads Dr. Spock, and the other who likes him in “Star Trek.” Their only consistency in raising Leaf has been how inconsistent they have been in their approach.

A year ago, the night before San Diego played the Raiders in Oakland, Dean Spanos, president of the Chargers and son of the owner, expressed dismay to a couple of sports columnists--Nick Canepa of the San Diego Union-Tribune being one of them--at being criticized for mishandling Leaf:

“What would you want us to do--bench him?”

Canepa is so seldom right about anything, but in this case the answer came in spontaneous harmony: “Well, yeah.”

The Chargers never got it, and have never gotten it right with Leaf, a 10-year asset, squandered from the outset.

They did their homework and knew of his character flaws dating back to high school, but being a franchise desperate for a quarterback, they swung a deal with Arizona, overpaying to position themselves to select Leaf.

Nothing wrong with that, so long as they were committed to properly developing Leaf.

But this is football, a game played by men, and at no time will anything be done to upset these men as they prepare for competition. It’s a practice that begins in grammar school, continuing through high school and college. The goal is to not distract the athlete, so indiscretions are overlooked.

After I had described Leaf as “a punk” before the start of the 1998 season, the Chargers and their fans reacted with anger and disbelief, although privately the Chargers knew better.

Offered the opinion a month later that Leaf appeared to have some kind of anger-management disorder that might require professional help, Beathard said the team did not want to upset Leaf.

Beathard, for all his positive attributes and his own success in raising children, disdains confrontation, and he was not equipped to assist in the maturation of Leaf. He gave up on Leaf long ago, much to the annoyance of others in the Charger organization who recognize that future success is still tied to Leaf.

Leaf has known of Beathard’s criticism behind his back, and given his lack of maturity and insecurity, a confrontation with Beathard was only a matter of opportunity.

The suspicion here is that Beathard is already preparing his retirement papers, worn out by Leaf and the increasing difficulties of assembling a successful football team.

But who leaves first? Beathard or Leaf?

Beathard’s legacy, while not needing any polishing, should include the development of Leaf into being one of game’s best big-arm quarterbacks. Instead, Leaf is now on a course of no return, in part orchestrated by the Chargers’ erratic manner in dealing with him.

Just when the public seemed interested in embracing the return of Leaf because of the dreadful play of Kramer and Jim Harbaugh, the Chargers have suddenly decided to get as tough as the rules will allow, as a result burying Leaf. There is no excuse for his behavior, but by ostracizing him and going public as quickly as they did--and that is not a Charger tradition--they turned talk away from losing to certifying Leaf a loser.

And now the Chargers have put Leaf in the position of having to be mature after sending him to his room. He must stand in disgrace until Nov. 29, when he will be expected to return as if nothing has happened.

He will really be messed up if he comes back and throws touchdown passes, because then he will be allowed to do most anything he wants.

Let this be a lesson to everyone: Never entrust your kids to the Chargers.

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Life of Ryan

San Diego quarterback Ryan Leaf didn’t have much success as a rookie last season, and has not played this season because of a shoulder injury. His 1998 stats:

PASSING

Attempts: 245

Completions: 111

Yards: 1,289

Touchdowns: 2

Interceptions: 15

Rating: 39.0

RUSHING

Attempts: 27

Yards: 80