See, now
there's the trouble with faith-based predictions,
like mine about the San Diego football team's future, and the Bush Administration's about Iraq. They're fun to make and roll right off the tongue, and if you happen to be right it's all good like cajun flavored sesame sticks. The problem is that they don't fare real well when stacked up against hard, cruel reality.
The Chargers absolutely had to win their last two games to make the playoffs in any realistic scenario, and they didn't even come close. I taped the game and watched it around 2pm, when Malaya's imminent departure for a family-based holiday party prompted me out of bed after a whopping 5 hours of sleep. (I just can not get tired before like 8am the past week. It's great for getting a lot of writing done, but since I'm up not long after noon every day, it's not so good for the bags under my eyes.) Even though I watched it, I can't really say why San Diego lost so helplessly. They weren't great on defense but they weren't awful, and since they average near 28 points a game, they should have been okay giving up 20 to a pretty good offense like Kansas City's. Their offense was obviously the real trouble, with only 7 points and less than 250 yards against a weak KC defense, and the weather was obviously a contributing factor there.
I began to sour on their chances right from the start, when they held KC to 3 and out thanks to a terrible dropped 3rd down pass by Dante Hall. After a weak punt SD had the ball on KC's 45, and I was thinking they would need at least 20 points to win, so they simply had to do something on this one, with just 25 yards needed to get into reasonable field goal range. They did nothing, calling slow-developing runs to LT on first and second down, and then looking confused on the requisite 3rd and long pass.
SD's second drive was better, as they answered the Chiefs and tied the score at 7, but that was effectively it for the Chargers' offense. The weather was cold and drizzily, and while the field looked okay through most of the first half, by the 3rd quarter it was terribly chewed up and basically resembled wet hay on mud. Neither team scored in the second half, and after SD's first possession ended in a wimpy little interception that went right through LT's hands on the KC 15 yard line, I gave up hope.
It's almost a blessing that SD didn't come back and at least make it close at the end, since my tape ended with 3:30 to play, when the network cut to the start of the Raiders' latest surrender. The national media keeps making jokes about Detroit, but have they checked out the
Raiders during the last month? They've lost four straight, and by game it's been 10-34, 10-26, 7-9, and 3-22 today, in Denver. Thirty points in a month isn't exactly the stuff of offensie legends, and it's pretty clearly they're not really making much of an effort. Unless that effort is to get another high draft pick, and they're doing pretty well there, thanks to recent wins by Baltimore, Cleveland, Arizona, and others. Hell, they could make the top five yet, if SF or NO, or NYJ or others aren't careful about winning their last game of the season.
Anyway, that's it for SD's playoff hopes, though at least they finally lost a game by more than 3 points, and looked bad doing it. It might not even matter, since Pittsburgh slaughtered Cleveland and Jacksonville finally scored some points and triumphed over Houston, and if those teams both win against next week, SD wouldn't have made the playoffs anyway. Perhaps this will put that "best team to not make the playoffs" chatter to rest. Hell, if SD folds up next week against Denver they'll barely even have a winning record, and could finish 3rd in their own division, ahead of only hapless Oakland.
Elsewhere, I was looking at
the NFL standings and had to laugh at the NFC West. Seattle won again today, beating Indy's backup players and coach 28-13, to run their record to 13-2. And with one week to go, they have as many wins as the other 3 teams in their division have put together. Arizona and Saint Louis have 5 each, and SF has 3. Sadder yet, of those 13 wins, 6 of them came head to head, since those teams play each other twice each season and hell, someone has to win. (SF's got 3 wins all year and 2 of them came against StL.) On the other hand, Seattle got 6 of their 13 wins in divisional games too, so maybe they shouldn't crow too loudly.
And in one final football note, I'm currently recording the Aloha Bowl and hoping it will be fun to watch later, though I have absolutely no interest in either Central Florida or Nevada. I just want to see some entertaining football after today's lackluster Chargers game, and since this one is already
28-20 at the half, hopes are high. Though I must admit that it will be odd to see a football game from Aloha Stadium where the
teams actually care who wins.
