Chargers Getting Passing Grade

With quarterback Brian Griese apparently in sharp comeback form, the Denver Broncos will face Super Bowl quarterback Tom Brady at New England today in the AFC game of the week.

But regardless of how well they play, the Broncos won’t be able to dislodge the San Diego Chargers from first place this week in the AFC West.

For the first time in his long career, San Diego Coach Marty Schottenheimer, who draws a bye today, has a complete team that can pass, run and play defense well enough -- without its best player, linebacker Junior Seau -- to upset the Oakland Raiders.

The pass plays that San Diego used last week to win, 27-21, were as well thought out as they were brightly polished.

One, called at the Oakland three-yard line, was a slow-developing play that required San Diego’s linemen to hold their blocks while running back LaDainian Tomlinson faked a block until he could sneak into the end zone for quarterback Drew Brees’ touchdown pass.

For a team that might be en route to a new home in entertainment-capital Los Angeles, that was sufficiently sophisticated.

Change of Strategy

Few football fans expect the 6-1 Chargers to hold first place forever against the 4-2 Raiders or the 5-2 Broncos, who, still favored in the AFC West, beat 3-4 Kansas City last Sunday, 37-34, on Griese’s passes to tight end Shannon Sharpe.

As Schottenheimer knows, he’s in a respectable division.

In his Kansas City days, he coached the Chiefs into the playoffs seven times. At 59, he’s been in the playoffs 11 winters in all, more than any other active coach. The difference at San Diego is that with Brees pitching, he has a pass offense.

With their old horse-and-buggy offense in Kansas City, his teams were locked out of every Super Bowl and into every conservative’s dream world. As those people invariably say -- and Schottenheimer was once one of them -- their life’s goal is to run the ball and stop the run.

He changed his philosophy in Kansas City too late to drive the Chiefs into the NFL championship game.

His old associates said it was in Schottenheimer’s 10th and final year in Missouri that he finally identified passing as the weapon of decision. You can run your way into the playoffs, they said he’d said then, but not into the Super Bowl.

Having proved this in his first 16 NFL seasons, he’s throwing a lot now with Brees. And still running, of course, with Tomlinson.

Not long ago, Tomlinson had everything but the will to mix it up with the big guys in the closeness of contact. Or so it looked. But he’s changed too, along with his coach. It’s a new day in San Diego.

Suspensions Hurt

One reason Denver struggled a week ago in Kansas City is that it was minus its strong safety, the defensive player who on any NFL team is instrumental. Kenoy Kennedy was benched that day by the NFL, which ruled that he had been making too many head-to-head hits.

Those are not only illegal in pro football but unquestionably unsporting.

Kennedy was fined $25,000, not harsh enough, and suspended for one game, too harsh.

Despite the predictable reaction in Denver, strong NFL action was necessary. The first game-time responsibility of the league, as Commissioner Paul Tagliabue acknowledges, is to keep its artists alive and playing football.

And that can be properly done only with heavy fines that discourage scofflaws.

The problem with a player suspension is that it penalizes the team as well as the player. A number of innocent people go down with the one convict.

Nor, to maintain order, are suspensions required. Fines accomplish the same thing -- if they’re large enough.

The only reason I can think of that Kennedy keeps hitting people illegally -- when he knows it will cost him a bunch of money -- is that it doesn’t cost him enough money. He should have been fined $50,000 or more, whatever it takes.

He was the one at fault, not his team, and not the football fans of Denver.

Nebraska Sounder

A college coach, Frank Solich of Nebraska, also faced a disciplinary problem this month and handled it with greater wisdom, which, perhaps, is more than can be said for his approach to Xs and O’s.

In the Oklahoma State game Saturday, Solich started his first-string quarterback, Jammal Lord, despite calls for Lord’s suspension.

The player had been cited for “disturbing the peace” with a girlfriend, Nebraska volleyball player Greichaly Cepero, in his apartment one morning three hours after midnight. Complicating Solich’s troubles, the volleyball coach did suspend Cepero, the team’s best player.

There are better ways than suspensions to discipline college athletes. Better ways, that is, so long as their infractions -- parking in handicapped-parking spaces or whatever -- don’t land them in jail.

All college players, for example, have privileges that can be restricted, particularly on trips. For some infractions, a coach can refuse to award the guilty letter winner a letter. And there are other measures.

The Cornhuskers, true, didn’t need quarterback Lord to help them lose to Oklahoma State, but if he’s the best they have he gave them their best shot in a game they lost, 24-21.

Suspensions are simply too unfair to the other players on the team and to the college itself, as well as to the team’s fans. Suspensions are as unfair as they are unnecessary -- in either college or pro ball.

Rams Coming?

The Rams keep cutting into the 49ers’ lead in the NFC West, where after starting 0-5 they have won their last two and are 2-5 in the standings behind co-leaders San Francisco and Arizona. The 49ers and Cardinals, both 4-2, meet in the NFC’s game of the week today.

So the question for the Rams suddenly is whether they’re too far out of it to catch up.

They do have the tools to get back, and stranger things have happened, if not lately.

Their most important new tool is quarterback Marc Bulger, who in Week 7 won his second game, leading the Rams past Seattle, 37-20.

One play in the Seattle game tells Ram fans plenty about Bulger.

At a key moment, he hit wide receiver Terry Holt with a deep corner throw that measured more than half the field, at least 52 yards. Setting up a touchdown, the ball was in the air a good 65 yards on a pass that was as perfectly thrown as any last year by injured starter Kurt Warner.

What’s more, during a critical series in the Seattle red zone, Ram Coach Mike Martz showed that he hasn’t lost his touch, whatever his critics like to say about him. With his calls in that series, Martz provided a clinic look at how to run the ball on goal-line plays when passing seems inadvisable. In a two-play sequence:

* First, the Ram coach put Bulger in an empty-backfield formation, faking pass, and had him hand off to the motion man, Marshall Faulk, who ran the ball to the three-yard line.

* Next, faking pass again, Martz sent Faulk racing into the end zone on a draw play.

The playoffs need the excitement that Martz brings to the game. It’s a longshot that might happen.

QB Like Statue

At Tampa, the new coach, Jon Gruden, doesn’t seem to be getting the most out of his talent -- a crucial aspect of the job that helped make him a winner at Oakland. Last week, as the Philadelphia Eagles beat Tampa Bay without an offensive touchdown by the Buccaneers, 20-10, it was obvious again that immobility in the quarterback position inhibits their chance to win.

Gruden’s starter, Brad Johnson, though as accurate as some of the league’s best quarterbacks, is strictly a pocket passer who, under a rush, is more statue than quarterback.

If Johnson can’t move, backup Rob Johnson apparently can’t impress Gruden.

Overall, the best quarterback in Tampa has been Shaun King since the Buccaneers drafted him four years ago. As a passer, King yields to the Johnsons, most critics believe, but in today’s football it doesn’t help much if a quarterback can pass but can’t move -- and King moves with distinction.

Five Guesses

Best of Week 8: A reader says she’d like some words on what’s ahead, not just on what has happened. So here are five guesses on the five most interesting pro games today:

* Denver by three over New England at Foxboro: Although at quarterback the Patriots’ Tom Brady might be No. 1 in the NFL, his support network isn’t as strong as Bronco quarterback Brian Griese’s. And now that they’ve lost three in a row, the defending champions’ confidence may be as shaky as their defense. If they beat Denver, they’ll win most of the rest.

* San Francisco by 10 over Arizona at 3Com Park: The surprise team of the National Football Conference -- tied now with the 49ers for first in the NFC West -- the Cardinals lack the defense to contain the 49ers.

* Oakland by five over Kansas City at Arrowhead Stadium: Will we see the Oakland that beat Buffalo, 49-31, and Tennessee, 52-25, or the Oakland that lost its last two? That is the question. Next year, the Chiefs will be a title-game contender. Not yet. Nor am I ready yet to give up on Rich Gannon or Jerry Rice. After today, maybe.

* Baltimore by three over Pittsburgh at Ravens Stadium: The difference here could be the Steeler defense, which doesn’t yet look quite right.

* New Orleans by seven over Atlanta at the Louisiana Superdome: Now that Atlanta’s young quarterback Michael Vick has warmed up against a couple of teams the Falcons can beat, it will be interesting to see how far he extends himself against a team they can’t beat.