ANALYSIS : Getting to Playoffs Won’t Be Easy for Chargers : Graduating to Playoffs Won’t Be Easy
SAN DIEGO — Coach Dan Henning said Tuesday that “it’s feasible” for the Chargers to be in the playoffs this season.
He did not say if he also has been advised privately that the rest of the country will soon be overrun by killer bees.
The Chargers are 3-5 on this Halloween, and unless they are allowed to dress in costume as the San Francisco 49ers for the rest of the season, do you really think they have the look of playoff contenders?
“It’s feasible,” Henning said. “We have to stay at the top of the pack of the 18 teams that started off last week with three wins or less.”
You can see how long it has been since the Chargers made it to the playoffs. They don’t even have a grasp of the rules on what it takes to get there.
There are only 14 teams in the American Football Conference, and every team in the NFC could finish with a worse record than Henning’s Chargers, and it wouldn’t make any difference.
The top six teams in the AFC will advance to the playoffs, and presently there are nine teams in the AFC with a better mark than the Chargers.
“We have to win, we have to continue to win to stay in there,” Henning said.
Now how feasible is that?
What happened to the fifth-place schedule that was going to make the Chargers fat and sassy this season? What happened to the defense that was going to buy time for a developing offense? What happened to Bobby Beathard?
At the midway mark of the season, the Chargers have compiled three victories. And these victories have come against the 2-6 Browns, the 3-5 Jets, and the 4-4 Bucs, who traveled across America without their starting quarterback.
In making their stretch run, the Chargers will play four games at home and four on the road. They will take on foes with a combined mark of 19-17. And yes, they get to play the Jets again.
But before ordering those playoff tickets, a midterm report card:
QUARTERBACK: C
Putting the ball in Billy Joe Tolliver’s hands is like giving the family car to the teen-ager on Friday night. Now whether you’re sitting in the stands or staying up all night, it’s nerve-racking. At times it looks like Tolliver couldn’t hit the Pacific Ocean if he threw from the Pacific Beach pier, but check his pulse, he’s now thrown 70 passes in a row without an interception. He’s tough, he’s a leader, and boo all you want, he’s a survivor . . . Mark Vlasic has a career mark of 2-1 as an NFL starter, and the head coach who won’t let him play has an
overall record of 31-56-1.
RUNNING BACK: A+
Want to make a quick buck: Take a weekend flight to Miami or Green Bay or Minneapolis and stop by the local pubs and wager football fans that they can’t tell you who leads the NFL in rushing. If Marion Butts duplicates his 654-yard performance in second half of the season, he will shatter the Chargers’ all-time rushing mark of 1,179 yards set by Earnest Jackson in 1984. If Chargers’ coaching staff hadn’t been bullied into getting the ball to Rod Bernstine, Butts might already have topped the 1,000-yard mark. Versatile Ronnie Harmon provides brass with more weapons than they know what to do with--and isn’t that the truth.
RECEIVERS: C-
They can find a tight end to play running back and a kicker who can’t miss, but they can’t find a qualified pass catcher to start opposite Anthony Miller. If Miller is drawing double coverage all the time, then how bad are these other guys? Miller has 33 receptions and the rest of the wide receivers have a total of 19. How about a Charlie Joiner comeback? In hindsight, the training camp knee injury to speedy Wayne Walker may have been the team’s most devastating loss. In lacking such production from the wide receivers, why not employ the pass-catching skills of Bernstine, Darrin Nelson and Harmon more often? A few more passes to the running backs would also increase Tolliver’s completion percentage and improve his confidence.
OFFENSIVE LINE: B
It’s like Robert Redford in “The Natural.” You have this just horrible/terrible/awful group of stiffs and then just the right guy wanders along, and voila, they start playing like Hall of Famers. In this case, that would be offensive line coach Alex Gibbs, and while no one will ever mistake him for Reynolds or Redford, Ripley’s should take notice. Chargers not only average 4.6 yards a run behind these so-called slugs, but in eight games, the team’s quarterbacks have been sacked only 11 times. That’s with Eric Floyd and Leo Goeas alternating at left tackle. Makes you wonder if Gibbs has some pact with the devil.
DEFENSIVE LINE: C-
What was to be the team’s biggest strength has been the biggest bust. In three victories, the defensive line had 10 sacks; in five defeats, it had 10. As the pass rush goes, so goes the Chargers’ defense. The loss of Joe Phillips was like Padres’ midseason loss of Benito Santiago. But then playing Lee Williams at defensive tackle is like asking Tony Gwynn to bat only against left-handers. Makes no sense. Williams was one of the game’s premier players as a defensive end, but at defensive tackle he’s been declawed. Burt Grossman is tied for the AFC lead with eight sacks, but has lost his funny edge since being berated by coaches for not playing well early on when he was hurt.
LINEBACKERS: C+
You got your Henry Rolling and you got your Junior Seau. You know, it’s like a record. On one side you got your big hit, “Johnny B. Goode,” and on the flip side you got your basic clunker. Rolling’s not only been one of the biggest surprises, but if you’re having a sports banquet and you’re looking for someone to impress the youngsters, get ahold of this guy. Seau obviously has the talent to be a great player, but he’s turned more people off than he has on so far . . . The leading tackler on this team for the fifth-straight season is Gary Plummer, but then you knew that.
DEFENSIVE BACKS: B
Two things you probably never thought you’d see again in your lifetime: Rain and a competent Charger secondary. Asking the Charger secondary to stay with Louis Lipps, Al Toon, Ernest Givins, Willie Gault and Mervyn Fernandez is like asking Woody Allen to keep up with Bo Derek. It boggles the imagination, but did you know that the Chargers’ secondary has allowed only three catches of 40 yards or more this season, and only one of those was for a touchdown. And safety Vencie Glenn has been hurt in the early going. Gill Byrd leads the AFC with five interceptions, Sam Seale has passed each test and Martin Bayless was having a Pro Bowl year before injuring an ankle. Are those rain clouds over yonder?
SPECIAL TEAMS: B+
The team’s 3-5 record in the first half of the season is even more disappointing when you consider the tremendous improvement made in special teams. Get it right, stupid. And so they did. Initially, they kept Fuad Reveiz over John Carney, but now Carney’s back and eight for eight in field goals. Punter John Kidd makes a genius again out of Beathard. Richard Brown and Steve Hendrickson have brought enthusiasm back to pro sports, and special teams coordinator Larry Pasquale has been the best thing to hit San Diego since Steve Ortmayer left town.
COACHING: C-
You get rid of that fake punt in Dallas and the Chargers are 4-4. Some folks would rather get rid of the guy who called for the fake punt, but another continuity blip here and you’re looking at the year 2000 before happy days are here again. Yeah, yeah, Henning’s stubborn, he’s deadly dull and the way he manages time on the sideline you have to figure he still doesn’t know we’re no longer on daylight savings time. But he has a plan, and as he gathers the personnel to make it work, you grudgingly come to the realization that he may know what he’s doing. In the past 10 games, the Chargers are 5-5 under Henning. They’d be 6-4 if the numbskull hadn’t called for the fake punt.
FRONT OFFICE: B+
The battle here is with expectations. OK, so the Chargers have won only 15 of their past 46 games, but we’re talking Bobby Beathard. Give him another month. Five of his draft picks have already earned starting time as rookies. And a sixth, quarterback John Friesz, is pegged as a potential starting quarterback down the road. Two of his Plan B acquistions, Kidd and Harmon, have paid sizeable dividends, and the signing of Rolling as a linebacker off the streets is the kind of thing Beathard did in 1983 to take the Redskins to the Super Bowl. Defense isn’t as strong as he thought when he took the job, and so rebuilding may take a little longer. So give him two months.
PREDICTION: 7-9
Killer bees fail to make it in time.
