The Chargers just ruined a great game

INDIANAPOLIS -- What a bunch of Goofs.

Everyone with any kind of interest in football has been waiting all season for the defending Super Bowl champions to challenge perfection, and the Chargers go and goof things up.

Who cares if Billy Volek’s high school coach knew he had it in him all along?

This NFL season is all about New England and its quest to become the best team the NFL has ever produced. And to make history, it’d be nice if the Patriots had a challenge.

I don’t know how many times I’ve said it, but the Chargers can’t do anything right -- winning when they really didn’t have the players to do so -- and now we’ve got LSU playing Ohio State.

The Chargers have already lost to New England this season, 38-14, and that was before Antonio Gates, Philip Rivers, LaDainian Tomlinson and Nate Kaeding began limping.

The Patriots opened in Las Vegas as a 15 1/2 -point favorite over the Chargers -- New England’s biggest task trying to get over the letdown of not preparing to play the Colts.

Shame on the Goofs for ruining everyone’s fun, like Cinderella making an appearance at this time of the football season is all that novel.

Any other year, OK, but next Sunday’s AFC championship game was going to be something special, a high-stakes drama featuring the game’s two best quarterbacks and three hours of TV that could not be missed.

But instead of a week of anticipation, football fans will get daily medical updates and the real prospect of watching an exhibition game with Michael Turner trying to prove he belongs in the same league as Tom Brady.

Bill Belichick matching wits with Norv Turner? Yeah, that’s fair.

“I have never been around a more gutsy performance than this one,” said Turner after the game -- as if he has that many positive football experiences to fall back on.

Hey, all the credit in the world goes to the Chargers for making Sunday’s divisional playoff game in the RCA Dome competitive and entertaining.

But instead of leaving with a nice parting gift, such as a solid moral victory, the Chargers played as if they think we really care how much it means to them to overcome adversity.

“There’s a mind-set in our league that our guys kind of play good when they’re ahead and are front-runners, but when the going gets tough they don’t rise to the occasion,” Turner said. “I think we’ve put that to rest.”

Does it really matter if the Washington Generals are loaded with intestinal fortitude?

“You come in looking forward to play next week,” said a disheartened Indianapolis Coach Tony Dungy, and no reason why he should be any different from anyone else.

Before the game NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell spent a good deal of time on the Colts’ sideline, and I thought it was pretty cool we were pulling for the same team.

Just imagine the TV ratings for next week’s Indianapolis-New England game, and what it might mean in advertising rates for the league down the road. A mini-Super Bowl to hype the season-ender in Arizona.

I was surprised Goodell hadn’t appointed himself replay official in the press box just to make sure nothing went wrong.

No need, though, with referee Gerry Austin ruling in the Colts’ favor on all four red-flag challenges during the course of the game.

Everything was set up for an Indianapolis win, all right, the noise in the RCA Dome playing havoc with the Chargers’ offense, Tomlinson sitting out the second half because of a knee injury and Turner coaching San Diego.

But for three quarters the Chargers had Rivers, and although that should have been a good thing for the Colts, this is how goofy things really got.

Years ago the Colts had the No. 1 pick in the draft, and took Peyton Manning, while the Chargers made a trade to move up to the second spot and take Ryan Leaf.

They actually thought they had the better quarterback at the time -- because that’s how they think.

The Chargers goofed, as everyone knows now, and paid for it over the next few years, drafting the other Manning and trading him before finally settling on Rivers, who would suddenly play like a big-time quarterback, and beat Manning.

The Chargers were six for eight in third-down situations with Rivers in the game, and somewhere Leaf had to be watching and wondering, what’s so special about this Manning guy?

The Colts, though, had the ball twice down the stretch in Manning’s hands with the chance to win and make everything in the football world thrilling again, but who goofed, you might want to know?

For one -- the RCA Dome scoreboard operator who tried to inspire the Colts with a scene from “300.” Like the Spartans, the Colts gave everything they had before getting wiped out -- of the playoffs.

But as goofs go, this one might’ve swung early on Marvin Harrison’s decision to play. Harrison sat out most of the season because of a sore knee, and the fans were just waiting to shower him with appreciation upon his first catch.

He got that chance with the Colts up 7-0, driving to score again and with the opportunity to bury the Chargers early. What a different game it might have been had the Colts gone up 14-0.

But instead of giving Harrison his moment in front of 56,950 howling fans, the Chargers elected to clobber him, Harrison fumbling his first catch and the momentum turning in favor of the Goofs, who would go on to tie the score.

Harrison, who sits on the end of the Colts’ bench and as far away as he can from his offensive teammates, wasn’t much of a factor the rest of the day.

He chose not to congratulate the Chargers after their win and was the first loser to leave the field, but knowing now what this means for next week, pretty much everyone has to feel like a loser.

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TODAY’S LAST word comes in e-mail from Todd White:

“The Spanos Goofs are looking pretty smart right now. And you are looking stupid as usual.”

At least one of us is consistent.

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T.J. Simers can be reached at t.j.simers@latimes.com.

To read previous columns by Simers, go to latimes.com/simers.