SAN DIEGO — It’s difficult to ask for more than one December miracle every 2009 years, so we won’t go there. This was Chargers-Broncos, a football game played out in Qualcomm Stadium, so there was no nativity scene — although little room was to be had at this particular inn, and there must have been a big star out there somewhere.
But there can be no denying everything that happened to this team in December, culminating with San Diego’s 52-21 victory over Denver that, while hardly biblical, was stuff most fiction writers would have rejected by publishers as utter nonsense.
The win over Denver, which collapsed like a bad souffle after holding a three-game lead in the AFC West just three weeks ago, improbably propels the Chargers as division champs into a first-round home playoff game against Indianapolis.
The Chargers, at one time 4-8, won their final four games of the regular season. The Broncos, at one time 8-5 and division leaders the first 16 weeks, had to win but one of their final three — or the Chargers had to lose one — and the season was over for San Diego.
All it took was some good fortune (see Kansas City), clutch play by the Chargers and one of the great collapses in NFL history by the Broncos for all this to happen. A miracle, no. Remarkable, yes.
“This was a situation presented to us,” Broncos quarterback Jay Cutler said, “and we didn’t take advantage.”
Last night, before a sellout crowd, the visitors had nothing to offer and were outclassed, outcoached and outgunned in every phase of the game. Denver got destroyed by a team that waited until the holiday season to hear bells going off.
For weeks fans had been greasing the rails to run coach Norv Turner out of town — although club president Dean Spanos and general manager A.J. Smith insisted he would return — and it’s obvious now Turner never let go of the rope. He has not lost in his two Decembers here, and it is in the 12th month when the cats run the mice out of Dodge.
Why it took this team so long to find itself no one will ever know, but it did, proving what Turner and Smith have been saying all along, that this is a group of high character.
“It means a lot for each individual in this locker room because it is a testament to all of us that we never folded,” linebacker Matt Wilhelm was saying. “Our coaches gave us the push necessary in order to come back and put us in position to win ballgames down the stretch, and we did that.”
Defensive coordinator Ted Cottrell was fired and replaced by Ron Rivera, seemingly a desperate act by a desperate franchise.
But, under Rivera, the defense improved and became more aggressive.
Nick Canepa is a sports columnist for The San Diego Union-Tribune. Contact: nick.canepa@uniontrib.com
