It hurts me to write that, but at this point I don’t see any other explanation. They’ve been close games, yes, and we haven’t been helped by the refs, true, and there have been serious injuries, horrible injuries, verily—but the Bolts are now 4-8, the same record as my beloved 49ers. That’s not the company they were hoping to keep at the beginning of the season. I’ll do my best to walk you through one of the stranger days we’ve had in San Diego; as always, this column contains uncredited and unappreciated comments from Ryan “Leaky Pipes” Thies, JJ “Ugh” Fiddler, and Shar “My Wife” Higa.
1. On the way into the stadium today—this is not a joke—the man who scanned my ticket looked me right in the eyes, with a middle-aged man’s piercing gravity, and said with no trace of irony or levity, “Good luck.” Pipes’ ticket-scanner told him, “Let’s get a win today.” The air of half-fear, half-determination draped over Qualcomm is disturbing. Let’s bring the swagger back.
2. Side note—should the Chargers ever get a new stadium, I hope they don’t fire their concessions buyer. They have the best hot dog buns in the world: they never break, and they’re not too absorbent so they don’t get completely saturated with ketchup. Sorry. Can you tell I don’t really want to talk about this game?
3. Crazy Cape Guy is here. If you’ve seen him in the ‘Myd or at CIF basketball finals, you know who I’m talking about. I try to interpret him as a good omen, and fail.
4. Failing pretty miserably at everything we’ve tried to do, and down with 9:17 in the second quarter, the impossible happens. Pipes is the ultimate “Yeah, but…” fan—make an argument about how bad a team he likes is and he’ll counter with, “Yeah, but…” That doesn’t prevent him from turning to me and saying with utter seriousness, “I just gave up on this season.” The next play we get a false start. Two plays after that Rivers is flagged for intentional grounding in the end zone, giving the Falcons two points.
5. The air went out of the crowd after that safety—you could feel things turning ugly. Fans were chanting, “Marty! Marty!” and demanding that everyone from Norv to LT to Rivers to the whole defense be replaced.
6. Pipes starts to refer to making a big mistake as “Plaxico-ing yourself.” I like.
7. Here’s a great indication of where these two teams are: in the second, with the game still competitive, there are a total of eight Falcons sitting on the bench; with the 11 on the field, that means that 36 of their players are standing up and watching the game, some of them cheering their team on. By contrast, there are a total of eight Chargers watching the game, and literally 36 guys on the bench, heads hung. Ugh.
8. The Finneran fumble call is the first great call we’ve had break our way this year—that was not even remotely a catch, but it was nice to put the points up on the board.
9. Speaking of points—our scoring drives were for a total of 55 yards, none started in our own territory, and all were off turnovers. At the beginning of the season the offense looked good and the defense was porous. Now the D has shored up a bit (though still no pressure on the QB, and Matt Ryan looked god-like) and the O is anemic, gaining barely 200 yards.
10. Norv going for two after that Weddle fumble TD was a horrible call. He Plaxico-ed his team pretty hard on that one. I don’t know of a high school coach who would’ve put the season on the line right there—I challenge you to find an NFL coach more affected by the fans than Norv. He just wants to be liked.
11. We walked out of the Q after the loss to the sound of Evanescence’s “Wake Me Up,” which they played after the last loss, too. “Save me from the nothing I’ve become?” Ouch, sound guy.
12. When all is said and done—a bitter crowd, hurled beer, screamed profanity, playoff hopes eliminated, 24 rushing yards on 14 carries for LT, a blocked field goal attempt, failure in every phase of the game—here is what this game was about. It was about coming to the Q, and sucking the last drops of hope from the marrow of this season. For about fifteen minutes of gametime, the playoffs still looked possible. Now that they’re not, I’ll savor those moments, the last sweet seconds of hoping for salvation in 2008.