SAN DIEGO — Although they had just won their third straight game, the San Diego Chargers left Raymond James Stadium in Tampa, Fla., with a dismissive wave of the hand, a combination of mockery and self-recrimination.
When they left the building, the televisions in the locker rooms and hallways showed the Broncos leading the Buffalo Bills 13-0. A Denver win would have put an end to the postseason hopes of a team strongly touted as a contender for Super Bowl XLIII, a game that will be played in February — at Raymond James.
As they boarded their charter, some of the Chargers wondered where things went so terribly wrong. Was it the loss of all-pro linebacker Shawn Merriman early in the year? The deflected pass that meant a last-second defeat in the season-opener against Carolina? Was it the blown call by referee Ed Hochuli in Week 2 at Invesco Field at Mile High? How much was the team kicking itself for the three-game losing streak to Pittsburgh, Indianapolis and Atlanta, the latter two at home, that dropped its record to 4-8, a hole from which no NFL team has ever recovered to make the playoffs?
“I think at that point we were just playing out the season,” wide receiver Vincent Jackson said Monday. “We just wanted to finish it out strong for ourselves; it wasn’t about the postseason.”
But what happened later Sunday afternoon depends on whom you talk to. Some say it was somewhere over the Gulf of Mexico; Jackson, a former star at Northern Colorado, insists it was somewhere just south of his home state.
Wherever the airplane was, news that the Bills had rallied to win not only set off a raucous celebration, not only gave breath to what had been flickering hope, it put San Diego in control of its destiny. With a win at Qualcomm Stadium this Sunday evening, the Chargers will win the AFC West. And while that may not be enough to warrant making a new set of reservations for Florida, it certainly beats going through the motions one day, then coming back to clean out their lockers the next.
“I’d be lying if I said I haven’t been watching scoreboards — I know I did last night,” coach Norv Turner said. “Our only chance was to do what we did — win the last three games and hope something good happened. It did, and now we have the opportunity to win one more game and then have something real good happen for us.
“The season is 16 (games) long; when it starts, you commit yourself to playing 16 (games). We’ve had some unusual and amazing things happen to us; the players have been through a lot, but the guys hung in there.”
Turner and the players are quick to point out that their current run of success and the Broncos’ failures the past two weeks doesn’t guarantee anything. San Diego is still 7-8 for a reason, although momentum and coming off what the coach said was his team’s “most complete” game of the season in Sunday’s 41-24 victory over the Buccaneers certainly augurs well for this weekend.
In trying to explain the Chargers’ rally to relevance, Turner gives credit to the team’s defense. Against Tampa Bay, San Diego forced a fumble on the Bucs’ first possession, one of three takeaways on the day. In the past three weeks, the Chargers have forced eight turnovers.
“We’re back to creating turnovers, creating on defense again,” Turner said.
Anthony Cotton: 303-954-1292 or acotton@denverpost.com
