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Questions about Chargers as end nears

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Our vigil at the bedside of the Chargers season continues.

We know Saturday night against the San Francisco 49ers could bring the last gasps of a once-promising campaign. Or maybe, just maybe, as the defense continues its brave fight for life, the offense will stir.

It’s in these moments that we find ourselves contemplating hefty matters. We wonder not only if the Chargers can be revived but tend to get ahead of ourselves and ponder things like whether it matters.

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How did they get here? Where do they go from here? Does this team have what it takes to make a run to the playoffs? Does it have what it takes to make a run in the playoffs?

The answer to the lattermost question, at least, is clear. No. No way. Not at present.

Close doesn’t count, especially this time of year.

Philip Rivers was resigned to that fact on Sunday, speaking shortly after the Chargers were defeated in a second straight home game to a second straight AFC power. But he’s an optimist too. One has to be, in times like these.

“I think both those teams we just played, I believe deep down we could beat those teams and we could’ve won either of these games,” Rivers said of the successive losses to the New England Patriots and Denver Broncos. “But I also, deep down, believe they’re better than us right now . . . That’s just what it is. Maybe we can be better than them if we get another shot at them, but that’s down the road, and now, that’s a big what-if.”

Hope can be found in recent championship seasons of teams who have all but had time of death pronounced in December. Three years in a row, in fact, the eventual Super Bowl champion was in danger of premature asphyxiation before making their march to immortality.

The Baltimore Ravens lost four of five games entering the 2012 postseason. The previous year, the New York Giants had to win their final two regular season games to finish 9-7. In ’10, Green Bay Packers secured the final NFC wild card spot only by winning its final two games.

Is that this Chargers team?

That’s a good question.

Many of the same players were part of the group that won four straight to make the postseason last year.

Does this team have that same chutzpah? Do they have the ability and the collective character to win their final two games, as they almost certainly must in order to have a chance to get back to the playoffs?

They say they need to play better. That either means everyone a little bit better, or enough of them a lot better. So far that hasn’t happened. Even non-playoff Chargers teams in recent years have coalesced at the end.

Was this team ever who we thought they were at 5-1 or 8-4? Did we really know all along that they didn’t quite have “it”?

Will Ryan Mathews and Keenan Allen not playing the bulk of December prove too much to overcome? Does the absence of Nick Hardwick and Danny Woodhead most of the season end up costing the Chargers in the locker room as well as on the field? Can Philip Rivers carry the team on his balky back? Is there a hero (or group of heroes) on defense?

Always so many questions as the end nears.

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