Here’s the Real Score on the Chargers

A most incredible rumor has surfaced hereabouts. It seems that the real Chargers have been spotted.

I don’t believe it. I haven’t seen the real Chargers at all since they made a couple of cameo appearances last year, and I haven’t seen them with any regularity since 1985.

Cynics, of course, are the folks saying that the real Chargers have arrived, because they have lost three straight games and plunged rapidly toward the mediocre morass in the middle of the American Football Conference.

“Aha,” they say, wagging all-knowing fingers, “ this is the team we expected.”

Ahem, I say, this may be the team everyone expected, but these are still not the real Chargers.

Examine the scores the last three weeks: 34-3, 31-17 and 33-18. The real Chargers never lost by such boring scores. To them, 31-17 was more than likely a halftime score. And a 33-18 lead was precarious, no matter who had it.

Charger games, real Charger games, were the National Football League’s version of Showtime. Those guys could be counted upon for two or three “Monday Night Football” appearances a year because the nation’s fans clamored to see them. It was fast-break football, no matter who had the ball.

The real Chargers haven’t been around much since 1985, when they won games by 44-41, 40-34 and 54-44 and lost by 49-35, 37-35 and 38-34. When Las Vegas set over-and-under numbers for Charger games, they looked like area codes.

Those were the Chargers. I could never figure why they bothered with kickoffs. They just should have taken the ball out of the net and raced back up field with it.

Defense be damned, those were electric games.

They picked up right where they left off when they beat Miami, 50-28, in last season’s opener. And then they disappeared, except for a 42-41 loss to Kansas City in midseason.

The real Chargers have not been seen since.

It took me awhile to realize that things had changed, and something was missing. Like everyone else, I was blinded by the fact that the Chargers started this season with eight wins in their first nine games. It didn’t occur to me to take note of how they were winning.

Replacements and regulars alike were winning by scores such as 10-9, 17-13, 23-17, 16-13 and 16-14. Those couldn’t have been Charger scores, at least not final scores.

In the second Kansas City game, the Chargers got silly and scored 42 points . . . but I’m not sure that represents any offensive benchmark. Oklahoma might score 56 points against Kansas City without throwing a pass.

It should be obvious by now that what has changed around here is the offense. Erratic and sporadic during those first nine games, it has all but disappeared in the successive losses to Seattle, Denver and Houston.

Poof. Gone.

Real Chargers may give up 34 points, but they score more than 3. Real Chargers may give up 31 points, but they score more than 17. Real Chargers may give up 33 points, but they score more than 18.

I’m not saying the real Chargers would have scored enough to win those games, but they would have scored enough to make the two-minute timeout a warning rather than a wake-up call.

This offense is simply not the real Charger offense.

Take, for example, all the concern over the fact that the Chargers have converted only 6 of 32 third-down opportunities during this three-game downturn. The third-down plays haven’t been the problem. The problem is rooted in the first- and second-down plays . . . and play selection.

The Chargers have run the ball 34 times and passed it 113 times during those three losses. If so, I would guess that 30 of those runs have come on first-down plays. That seems to be the way this offense operates. Run for a gain of one or two yards on first down and then throw an incomplete pass.

Third and eight. Third and nine.

That’s a good way to go nowhere.

And that is where this team is headed. This offense has scored a total of three touchdowns in the last three games. Three touchdowns used to be a good quarter . . . or a bad half.

This offense is in trouble. The quarterback has not been sharp, and probably is more banged up than he will admit. There are too many tight ends and not enough wide receivers, unless you count the running backs who set up as wide receivers. If, in fact, Gary Anderson and Lionel James are wide receivers, then there aren’t enough running backs. If it sounds at all confusing, it should. This offense looks confused.

Indeed, this offense could not get as much as a field goal when it ended the first half inches from the Denver goal line two weeks ago. Trailing, 20-2, at the same point in Sunday’s loss in Houston, it settled for a field goal even though it had seven seconds on the clock and a time out remaining.

The real Chargers would not have squandered or compromised in such situations.

These guys, it appears are neither for real nor real . You can ignore those rumors you’ve heard.