SAN DIEGO
— Befitting the season and belying their regular season, the Chargers are again conveying tidings of comfort and joy.
After false starts and friction, convulsive change and awkward transitions, pro football’s most puzzling team would seem to have solved most of its mysteries and begun to chart a coherent path.
Monday night’s 23-3 drubbing of the Broncos was more workmanlike than wondrous, but it stretched the Chargers’ winning streak to five games and almost everything else is secondary at this stage.
Come December, all that really matters is W’s. Or, to put it in yuletide terms, No L.
“Every game toward the playoffs, we’ve got to get higher and higher,” safety Clinton Hart said. “We want to be clicking on all cylinders by the time that first round of playoffs comes.”
Since the New England Patriots remain unbeaten and the Indianapolis Colts are still defending a Super Bowl championship, and the Chargers may have to beat both of them in order to reach Super Bowl XLII, clicking on all cylinders may prove a minimum requirement next month.
But if their chance at a championship has improved only from impossible to implausible, the Chargers may yet be capable of additional upgrades. The same defense that was shredded in New England and demoralized in Minnesota is operating close to peak efficiency. If it is not yet clicking on all cylinders, neither is it shorting out with blown assignments and botched tackles.
This is progress. This means possibilities. Though Charger quarterback Philip Rivers does not inspire nearly as much confidence as a Tom Brady or a Peyton Manning, a football team can still go a long way if the other side can’t move.
“I think we’re kind of jelling as a team,” linebacker Shawne Merriman said. “We’re coming along to where the front seven is playing as good as the secondary. When you have a defense coming together like that, you’re going to have some results.”
The Broncos may have mailed this one in — hard to blame them, on Christmas Eve — but it’s worth noting that the visitors amassed only three first downs in the first half and that their three points were the product of an unforced fumble by backup quarterback Billy Volek.
December games are often misleading. When one side is mainly marking time and the other is preoccupied with protecting key players for the playoffs, the competition is inevitably undermined and conclusions are sometimes overstated.
That said, the difference in the Chargers’ defense down the stretch can be seen in their reaction time as well as their statistics; in their ability to force the action as well as to adjust. The common criticism of September — that the defense was counterpunching instead of attacking — has seldom been heard down the stretch.
Concepts defensive coordinator Ted Cottrell had trouble selling early in the season have been absorbed. When new insights become instinct, a defense becomes dangerous.
“I think that comes with confidence,” Chargers coach Norv Turner said. “Confidence comes in two ways: It comes from winning, No. 1, and it also comes from knowing exactly what you’re doing. Obviously our guys are extremely comfortable with what we’re doing. You see it in how fast we’re playing.”
Tim Sullivan is a sports columnist for the San Diego Union-Tribune.
