SAN DIEGO — Exceedingly polite and personable, San Diego Chargers linebacker Stephen Cooper insists there is no animosity between his team and the Broncos, short of the urgency that comes from two teams regularly duking it out for superiority in the AFC West.
“We’ve been battling, and Oakland and Kansas City have been under the radar,” Cooper said. “It’s all about getting the division championship.”
Sunday night’s meeting between the teams will mark the fifth straight time that one or the other will win the AFC West title. But anyone who thinks that is the only thing in play when Denver and San Diego meet is highly mistaken, says Chargers star LaDainian Tomlinson.
“He’s just trying to be nice,” Tomlinson said of Cooper on Wednesday. “It’s absolutely different from the other teams we play. . . . I take a fair amount of cheap shots against them. That goes right along with the chippiness, the extracurricular stuff that goes on. But if that’s the way they’re going to be, then we’re going to get our guys to do the same thing to them. That’s just the way it’s going to work.
“And I’m pretty sure there will be a lot of it going on this weekend, with so much on the line and two teams that really don’t care for each other.”
While the rancor that stems from the exchanges between Jay Cutler and Philip Rivers still seems to fester in Colorado, the Chargers’ quarterback says it’s old news in San Diego.
“It got a lot of attention a year ago, but there’s nothing there now,” Rivers said.
On Wednesday, the Chargers seemed more interested in reliving the highlights from their verbal exchanges with Tampa Bay Buccaneers players during last week’s 41-24 victory. At one point, Rivers said, he chided Bucs cornerback Ronde Barber’s ignorance over an official’s ruling, telling the veteran, “You didn’t know that? You’ve been in the league for 40 years.”
At another point, Tampa Bay’s fifth-year wide receiver Michael Clayton, who has been in coach Jon Gruden’s doghouse the last couple of seasons, told one of the Chargers defensive backs that he should show some respect “for my numbers.”
The reply? “I did when you had some your rookie year, but where have you been since then?”
There undoubtedly will be similar holiday cheer exchanged Sunday at Qualcomm Stadium, but during this week’s buildup toward the game, the Chargers have seemed almost torn about the idea that it’s Denver they will be playing.
Tomlinson and Rivers said it was relevant in that the season finale will enable the teams to decide matters mano-a-mano, as opposed to the Week 2 meeting, which to some extent was decided by an incorrect late fourth-quarter call by referee Ed Hochuli.
“I really believe he’s happy that this game means something,” Tomlinson said. “Whatever happened at the beginning of the year doesn’t mean anything now. We have the opportunity to make that go away.”
Others countered that the quest to make the postseason and host an opening-round game against Indianapolis is made tougher by the need to win against an opponent familiar with their schemes from the twice-yearly battles.
“They know us and we know them,” coach Norv Turner said. “You get to know a little more about tendencies and what players do and what they don’t do.”
But the fact that this game is being played more than three months after the first meeting perhaps negates some of the familiarity. And the Chargers also feel there have been enough personnel changes on their side, like the acquisition of Chris Chambers last year, as well as the emergence of wide receivers Vincent Jackson and Malcom Floyd, that the Broncos won’t be able to maintain the status quo in their approach.
“(Tight end Antonio) Gates was saying they used to just put (Broncos cornerback) Champ (Bailey) on him and not really worry about anybody else,” Chambers said. “Well, they can’t do that now. They have to do something different about that, but there are only so many new wrinkles you can put in. Everybody knows everybody. You just go with what you got, and the team that’s the most physical, that has the least turnovers, is the one that’s probably going to win the game.”
Anthony Cotton: 303-954-1292 or acotton@denverpost.com
