LOREN NELSON COMMENTARY: Strange season no reason to clean house


PITTSBURGH -- Another Chargers season ends without confetti cannons, rock bands, midfield podium interviews and the hoisting of a highly polished solid-silver football.

Another season ends in failure.

The Chargers lost 35-24 to the Steelers at Heinz Field in the AFC divisional playoffs Sunday, meaning the Chargers are one of 30 NFL teams that will not reach the Super Bowl.

No doubt there are legions of intensely disappointed Chargers fans who right now would be more than happy, were they running the franchise, to fire the general manager, fire the coach, fire 'em all.

Stop. Let's take a deep breath before we start handing out pink slips, before we ship the special teams to Saskatchewan, before we go Donald Trump-batty and dismantle a franchise as capable as any of going the distance.

The Chargers didn't look all that capable at times Sunday. That can't be argued.

There are only so many bad bounces, so many comic-book plays, so many balls falling out of the sky and landing on players' heads that you can point to in explaining away a loss.

It's especially difficult to blame poor luck and unhappy football Gods on, say, a Santonio Holmes 67-yard punt return for a touchdown.

Special teams were not stellar for the Chargers. More notably, neither were the offensive and defensive lines.

These games are won by the monsters in the trenches, and the Steelers got the better of that tug-o-war, same as the New England Patriots did last season in the AFC Championship Game.

It's always easiest to blame the coach for one of these losses. He was too aggressive. He was too passive. He made the wrong call. He managed the clock wrong. He didn't look fiery enough on the sidelines. His hair was a mess.

Norv Turner did not lose this game. The Chargers, in a rare occurrence this season, actually looked sharp from the start.

They scored first, needing just more than two minutes to reach the end zone on a Philip Rivers strike to Vincent Jackson.

Then came the special teams follies. After that, a couple of bad breaks. A pass was tipped for a diving interception. A punt bounced off Eric Weddle's head and into the Steelers' mitts. Turner challenged three go-either-way calls, and lost all three coin flips.

The Chargers had the ball for one play in the third quarter. An interception.

That's the sort of day it was.

"It was crazy," Rivers said. "It was such a weird third quarter."

On the tombstone for this most bizarre Chargers season, it should read: "9-9. Didn't block that well, couldn't tackle so good. Got what we deserved."

The Steelers' top-ranked defense held the Chargers to 15 rushing yards. Rivers was sacked four times.

It's simple to dissect what went wrong there: the Steelers' big uglies played better the Chargers'. General manager A.J. Smith, like Turner a popular pinata right about now, deserves another shot at patching the dike.

Generally, Smith has drafted well. There have been notable first-round misses, and they have hurt the franchise. But Smith's late-round steals, draft-day deals, midseason trades and abundance of undrafted free agent signings have, for the most part, worked out well.


