San Diego Chargers Football Team

We're at the point where any San Diego Chargers victory can be summarized in two words. This goes back to Nov. 19, when between updates I saw a 24-7 San Diego deficit against Denver turn into a 35-27 Chargers victory and I text-messaged a friend to ask what happened. My buddy's reply: "LT happened." Flash-forward to Sunday, when the Chargers had to deal with a strong Oakland Raiders defensive effort, a shaky performance by quarterback Philip Rivers and a 14-7 Raiders lead in the fourth quarter.

Sure, he's among the NFL's elite quarterbacks, but San Diego's Philip Rivers in some ways is just another click in the crowd. He's one of the people who have clicked their way to more than 56,000 viewings of a highlight video of former Fresno State running back Ryan Mathews, the Chargers' first-round draft pick. It's clear that Rivers cannot wait for the season to begin. Of all the changes in San Diego this season — and there are many — the change at running back from LaDainian Tomlinson to Mathews will be the most scrutinized.

The picture has been there for the last five years, amid the ever-changing kindergarten art that adorns Kelly Kruse's refrigerator door. Kind of strange, really, as Kruse now admits, but the frozen moment from a postgame reception at the University of Notre Dame features Kelly and her sister Laura with their arms draped over the solid shoulders of football player Rodney Culver.

When Marty Schottenheimer walks into a room, you know you're in the presence of a football coach. When Norv Turner walks into a room, you ask him whether he's finished doing your taxes. When Schottenheimer's 2006 San Diego Chargers stormed into the playoffs with a 14-2 record, you wondered how they could possibly be one and done.

Linebacker Junior Seau stalked off the field, removed his helmet and hurled it to the turf. Then he carried his tantrum to the Charger defensive coaches. "We weren't getting a sack," Seau said. "I couldn't believe it. We should have put more pressure on the quarterback. I'm telling them, 'Blow off the scheme we're using and do something else. Do what we've practiced.' "We were losing, I'm frustrated and I'm thinking, 'Do something more, Junior.' " It was an exhibition game.

You've been to the mall and maybe you've seen a young mother toting a crying baby, pushing a stroller with a screaming toddler, and at the same time trying to keep track of a rambunctious youngster. Or, maybe you've seen Chuck Clausen at work on the Chargers' practice field. Clausen has been hired to babysit Leslie O'Neal, Burt Grossman, Joe Phillips and several more big lugs who are employed as defensive linemen by the Chargers. Good luck.

The best player in the NFL is right down Interstate 5, but the view is blocked by a big head 3,000 miles away. The best player in the NFL speaks in a soft voice, but even when you're nearby he's drowned out by the cacophony generated from the other side of the country. Two men were standing a few yards from the BPITN as he practiced the other day, but he wasn't the subject of conversation. "What do you think of T.O.?" one said to the other. "He's an idiot," was the reply.

Picture a boy in the sixth grade. His mom packs his lunch and scoots him off to the first day of school. He is big for his age. He is deaf in one ear, having had tumors removed. He also has a cleft palate--a harelip, someone cruel would call it--that affects his speech. The boy goes to class. Looks around. Suddenly realizes that he has been placed with the children who are partially or severely retarded. Why? Because he talks funny. Blaise Winter, 11, runs home to his mom, crying. Blauvelt, N.Y.

Eugene Klein, the combative and colorful former owner of the San Diego Chargers who never won a major event in sports until he turned to thoroughbred racing, died early Monday, apparently after suffering a heart attack at his Rancho Santa Fe home. Klein, 69, a native New Yorker who made a fortune on the West Coast in diverse business ventures ranging from automobile sales and real estate to movie production and book publishing, was stricken at his home at 3:50 a.m.

With anger at the Chargers and scorn for Los Angeles, city officials here Wednesday vowed an immediate, vigorous and multifaceted legal challenge to a lawsuit filed by the Chargers that appears a precursor to a potential move to Los Angeles. At a City Hall news conference, Mayor Dick Murphy and City Atty. Casey Gwinn said they found the timing of the suit outrageous, the issues meritless and the venue scandalous.

The pass is complete -- inexplicably, unbelievably, surrealistically complete. The San Diego Chargers have passed the Denver Broncos for good. Written off weeks ago as an NFL also-ran, the Chargers rewrote a bit of league history Sunday by becoming the first NFL team to make the playoffs by overcoming a three-game deficit in the last three weeks of the season.

FOXBOROUGH, Mass. -- Throughout the NFL season, quarterback Tom Brady carried his New England teammates when they needed him most. Sunday, it was the rest of the Patriots who did the lifting. With a trip to Super Bowl XLII at stake and NFL history hanging in the balance, the Patriots relied on their stout defense and clock-burning running game to beat San Diego, 21-12, turning back an inspired effort by the banged-up Chargers.

FOXBOROUGH, Mass. -- The winds are expected to howl through Gillette Stadium today when the undefeated New England Patriots play host to San Diego with a trip to Super Bowl XLII at stake. But are they the winds of change? The Chargers, who salvaged their season after a 1-3 start and are riding an eight-game winning streak, are determined to show they're not the same team that was demolished at Foxborough, 38-14, in Week 2.

SAN DIEGO -- It's not clear whether San Diego's Philip Rivers will be healthy enough to line up at quarterback Sunday when the Chargers play at New England in the AFC championship game. But Rivers can still play defense -- at least verbally.

INDIANAPOLIS -- All night long, Billy Volek kept waking with the same nightmarish thought: Oh no, I've missed the team bus. By morning, the San Diego Chargers reserve quarterback had managed only a few hours' sleep and wasn't getting any more, not with a teammate banging on his hotel room door, telling him: "Let's go."

Whew! He might not admit it, but you know that's what San Diego Chargers' General Manager A.J Smith uttered Sunday as the clock ticked down on his team's tough playoff win. Whew! Finally! Or maybe something a bit less genteel. This game was a referendum on Smith, one of the NFL's best general managers -- and perhaps its gutsiest.

Hide the women and children. No, that's not right. Jim McMahon already has a wife, Nancy. And they have three children. Nancy is a saint. She lives with McMahon. Every day. Their kids are the joy of Jim McMahon's life. Golf is his favorite sport. Chicago is still his city of preference. And playing quarterback in the National Football League is his passion. When football is not in season, McMahon can't get back to the privacy and creature comforts of his home fast enough.

The California Supreme Court ruled unanimously that the only recourse for John Hendy, a San Diego Charger cornerback who suffered a career-ending knee injury, is the injury benefits offered by the state workers' compensation system. Hendy blamed the injury on negligence by a team doctor.

SAN DIEGO -- Thumb through the pages of the San Diego Chargers' 2007 season, a book still being written, and marvel at all the setbacks and downturns. There was the 1-3 start . . . The thrashing at New England . . . The boos raining from the upper reaches of Qualcomm Stadium and the chants of "Mar-ty! Mar-ty!" . . . LaDainian Tomlinson's cold-shouldered brush-offs of quarterback Philip Rivers and Coach Norv Turner . . .