Chargers Let Another One Get Away : San Diego: Redskins Coach Joe Gibbs gets 100th NFL victory in 26-21 comeback win.
WASHINGTON — The Redskins did what they had to do Sunday, beating the Chargers, 26-21, to remain alive in the NFC wild card chase.
“Alive and breathing,” said Washington’s Joe Gibbs after his 100th NFL victory as a head coach. The win gave the Redskins an 8-6 record, the same as Minnesota and Green Bay.
And the Chargers (4-10) did what they had to do. For the third time this year, Coach Dan Henning, a former Gibbs’ assistant in Washington, handed the ball to rookie quarterback Billy Joe Tolliver and played for next year.
The results were encouraging for the Chargers as long as you didn’t ask Tolliver, the red head with the rifle arm who has virtually ended Jim McMahon’s future as a starter with the Chargers.
Tolliver completed 24 passes in 39 attempts for 350 yards and two touchdowns. He didn’t throw an interception or get sacked.
“I don’t care if I complete 40 of 45 passes for 650 yards and 10 touchdowns,” Tolliver said afterward. “If we lose the football game, it’s all for nothing.”
Aside from Tolliver’s performance, the Chargers played pretty much the way they have all year. They blew a lead (14-0) for the eighth time in their 10 losses. They failed to score when they could have won or tied on their last possession for the ninth time in 10 weeks. And their special teams were miserable.
Their defense allowed more than 20 points for the first time in almost three months. But when rookie Marion Butts bounced an off-tackle play outside for a 10-yard touchdown run--his ninth of the year--the Chargers led, 21-16, with 8:04 to play.
Butts, whose mother died early in the week, led all rushers with 72 yards in 22 carries despite having missed most of the week’s practice to attend the funeral in Georgia.
But Joe Howard returned the ensuing kickoff 51 yards to the Charger 39. Only a touchdown-saving tackle by cornerback Elvis Patterson prevented a score.
Before Patterson had a chance to completely catch his breath, Redskin quarterback Mark Rypien (23 of 39 for 302 yards and two touchdowns) threw a 33-yard touchdown pass to wide receiver Gary Clark that beat a Charger blitz on fourth-and-four.
Patterson played the entire second half because starter Sam Seale injured a hamstring. “It was a bad play on my part,” Patterson said of Clark’s score. “But I don’t know too many people in the league who could stop that play.”
Rypien said: “It was a timing thing.”
And it regained the lead for Washington at 23-21.
More bad timing arrived for the Chargers moments later when Tolliver and rookie center Courtney Hall missed signals in noisy, chilly (36 degrees) RFK Stadium and fumbled the snap.
Charles Mann recovered and the last of four Chip Lohmiller field goals, a 28 yarder, gave the Redskins a five-point lead with less than four minutes remaining.
Which meant the Chargers needed a touchdown, not a field goal, to win. They haven’t scored four touchdowns in any game this year. And they still haven’t.
“You’d think after 99 wins a guy would at least give a guy a break,” Henning said referring to Gibbs’ milestone victory. “Just one little old break.”
Gibbs’ achievement wasn’t the only noteworthy one. Washington’s Art Monk caught nine passes for 81 yards and moved past former Redskin Charley Taylor into the No. 3 spot on the NFL’s all-time receiving list behind Seattle’s Steve Largent and Charger assistant Charlie Joiner.
Monk has now caught 651 passes. Monk’s teammates, Gary Clark and Ricky Sanders, grabbed seven and four passes respectively on Sunday.
Sanders’ 45-yard reception after beating Gill Byrd on a crossing pattern came with only 15 seconds left in the first half and began the Redskin comeback.
The Chargers had jumped out to a two-touchdown lead by scoring on their first two possessions--a 25 yard Tolliver pass to wide receiver Anthony Miller and a four-yard pass, in which Tolliver scrambled from the pocket, to rookie Wayne Walker.
Miller finished with eight catches for 157 yards. It was the fifth time this year he has caught passes for more than 100 yards.
But despite netting 427 yards on offense, their highest total of the year, the Chargers lost their fourth straight.
“I don’t want to say we’re getting used to this, but that’s what it seems like,” said Burt Grossman, the Chargers’ candid rookie defensive end.
“Same old story line,” said Byrd.
The Charger defense entered the game ranked fifth in the league in sacks but didn’t get to Rypien. Grossman said part of the reason was because Washington resurrected the old “dash” series with a moving pocket that made Joe Theismann so effective in the early 80’s.
The Chargers rank third behind only Atlanta (3-11) and the Jets (4-10) in the race for the top pick in next spring’s NFL draft.
