8 we've been gettinguncomfortably used to these days

The San Diego offense was its usual high poweredself in this game, and Phillip Rivers had the most accurate day of his career todate, completing 20-of-25 passes, an 80 completion rate for a pair oftouchdowns and no interceptions, while his Eagles counterpart, Donovan McNabb,who has thrown for some 29,000 yards in his career, looked like he might doublethat figure in this one game. His final total: 35-of-55 for 450 yards (yes,folks thats FOUR HUNDRED FIFTY) and a pair of TDs. It seems that after spendinglast week chasing after Eli Manning, often scaring the daylights out of him andsmashing into the turf five times, San Diego's defensive coordinator decidedthat McNab, possibly in deference to his possible future hall of fame status,needed no such treatment and he installed what he called the "bend don't break"defense which, for those of us not up on the finer nuances of football parlance,translates to the: "Let that sucker sit back there all day long, if need be,until one or more of his receivers gets open, but don't hassle him; let himthrow for 450 yards. It'll look good on his resume" defense. And that's whatthey did. I have never quite understood the utility of such a defensivestrategy, and now, having seen it succesfully implemented (it was, after all,a win), I still don't understand it. It has always seemed to me that one of theprimary goals of the defense is to give the opposing quarterback an opportunityto increase his knowledge of astronomy, and the optimal position for doing thatis on his back studying the constellations. Alas, poor McNabb had no suchopportunity, for while he WAS afforded ample time to stargaze if he chose to doso, he would have had to strain his neck uncomfortably to effect his studies, ashis only contact with the ground came on a play when he turned to move aroundand actually tripped over a Charger who was lying thereupon Thus his celestialknowledge remained static for this game.

How sad. So our poor, outnumbered andovermatched defensive linemen found themselves spending most of the day facedown in the turf, and had to wait for Mr. McNabb to sack himself, This was a fine looking display for San Diego'soffense. Even LaDainian Tomlinson got into the act, as he had far and away hisbest day of the season, finishing the day carrying 24 times for 96 yards in whatnot too awful long ago would have been considered a disappointing effort. Still,his 4 yard average sure beats the heck out of the 1.8 we've been gettinguncomfortably used to these days. When LT went to his locker before the game,there was a little box with a ribbon in there Inside the box was a positivepregnancy test. Maybe that motivated him, who knows He still would not havebeen able to run without somebody blocking. Maybe the linemen each got one, too.So when the Chargers finished the third quarter ahead 28-9, I began to breathe abit easier, thinking that this game was beginning to look like the San Diegoplayers would end the day with frosting on their shoes from the day's cake walk.But it didn't quite turn out that way. Philadelphia awoke from their doldrums asSan Diego's heads began to nod in drowsy complacency, and scored two quickunanswered touchdowns to pull to 28-25, making THIS spectator suddenly feel abit of queasiness as to the sudden change of wind direction.

There was stillmore than 7 minutes left in the game; plenty of time for anything to happen,especially since in the last 8 minutes the Birds had scored two TDs. Thecardiovascular health of Chargers fans everywhere was now in jeopardy, asPhiladelphia had already scored 5 times today (3 of them fortunately fieldgoals), and if they should stop San Diego one more time.....well, let's just sayI was already anticipating today's column taking a somewhat nasty turn. It'sokay to give up 450 yards passing to a team if you win, but if you give up morethan FIVE HUNDRED yards passing and then lose, well, you can just imagine theacid that you would be reading right now. Fortunately, you, my faithful electrongazers, are to be spared such vitriol, as Phillip Rivers and his band of merrymen trotted out there on that field and orchestrated a drive of suchclock-munching magnificence that by the time San Diego kicked a field goal toput them up by a much more palatable 8 points, McNabb only had 30 seconds withwhich to work, and he was not up to that task. This defense may not have beenable to stop the Eagles from driving the length of the field at will, but theyCOULD prevent them from doing it in less than 30 seconds, praise the Lord. As if this sweet fourth-victory-in-a-row wasn'tenough to make a Chargers fan's day, I had already been rewarded with warmfeelings a few hours earlier, when just on a lark I decided to tune in to theDenver-Washington game. I of course figured the outcome of this one was aforegone conclusion, even calling it a "bye" for Denver in my column last week.The Redskins had other ideas, however, and not only did they pound Denver intosubmission, but gave San Diego the additional lovely parting gift of disablingDenver starting quarterback Kyle Orten in the process.

His return for thisweek's showdown against San Diego is questionable (yeah, RIiiiiiggghht!), and ifDenver must field backup Chris "our dreams just came true" Sims against theChargers, ya gotta love our chances. Sims played the second half againstWashington this week, and he displayed more rust than the wreckage of theTitanic He was awful. It's always hard to win a game in Denver, but if Orton isout, Denver will likely continue their reeling ways. Speaking ofwhich: San Diego's last loss was a month ago when Denversent them down to defeat IN San Diego, 34-23. It elevated Denver's record to 6-0and dropped San Diego's to 2-3, making the Denver lead 3 1/2 games in thedivision, a seemingly insurmountable one, considering the way both teams wereplaying to that point. Since then, however, Denver has not won a game and SanDiego has not lost one. Thus, this week's showdown in Denver has momentoussignificance, as both teams are 6-3, with Denver having lost their last threegames and San Diego having won their last four, thus offering nervous Denverfans a queasy feeling of deja vu, as they remember their historic melt down oflast season's end.