Excuses Abound

If I were a professional football player, I would be embarrassed to admit that I was one of ten mediocre players on a team whose success depended on one superman. Merriman, apparently, can leap tall buildings in a single bound, and his season-ending injury rendered the Charger defense utterly toothless in the face of a second year quarterback.

Of course, that doesn't explain what happened last week, when that same defense rendered the Patriot offense pretty much impotent.

To defend against the pass, a team must either force the passer to throw in a hurry or must cover the receivers downfield. It needn't do both, either one of the two will suffice, but it must do one of the two. The Chargers defense has the talent and the demonstrated ability to do both, but in some games it inexplicably decides to do neither.

In some cases the offense will rise to the occasion and overcome the deficiencies of the defense, but against the Bills the offense decided to sink to the level of the defensive ineptitude.

I think there is no team in the league with as much talent and as little ability as the Chargers. If they put as much energy into playing the game as they did into coming up with excuses for losing, the Chargers would be 7-0 and Superbowl-bound.