Difficult home stretch for Bolts
They allowed themselves to think about what it would be like.
They were 5-1 and focused. But there were moments where they envisaged a little more of a holiday during the Holidays.
Just another win or two would’ve done it. Get past Kansas City. Steal one in Denver. Escape Miami.
They knew it would be tough. But how sweet it would be, they thought. Then December wouldn’t have to be so demanding, every game so dire.
Alas, that’s not the Chargers way.
Three straight losses put them in a situation where pretty much every Sunday is, in the parlance of a Philip Rivers t-shirt slogan, sine qua non. Essential.
The Chargers quarterback often sports a shirt with the Latin phrase Nunc coepi, which also applies to this situation, as it is translated, “Now I begin.”
We’ve been pointing toward the final five games of the season – three on the road, all against teams with winning records – as the perilous mountain pass the Chargers would have to navigate to make the playoffs.
Make it the final six.
In part because of their slide and partly because the St. Louis Rams have shown they are more dangerous than a mere record can convey, the Chargers’ final push has begun earlier than expected.
“Now it’s a six-game bloodbath,” Eric Weddle said.
The Chargers (6-4) likely need to win four of their remaining games -- and do it against the second-most difficult remaining schedule of any NFL team.
Besides a resurgent and rehabilitated Ryan Mathews and a defense also refreshed and restored to whole, history provides much reason to think the Chargers can do it.
Since becoming a starter in 2006, Rivers’ Chargers are 38-10 over the final six games of a season, the best such mark in the NFL. They’ve gone undefeated three times and never finished worse than 3-3.
For perspective, that supremacy was built against opponents with a combined .476 winning percentage at the time the Chargers played them. Of the 38 victories, just 16 came against teams with winning records.
The Chargers’ final six opponents this year are 15 games above .500, collectively. That includes Sunday’s game against the Rams, who have beaten Seattle, San Francisco and Denver and gotten to 4-6 while playing the league’s toughest schedule through 10 weeks.
It’s never been this daunting.
In 2007, when the Chargers entered Week 12 tied with the Broncos atop the AFC West with 5-5 records, their remaining six games featured just two opponents with winning records.
When the Chargers needed four straight victories (and a lot of help) to make the playoffs at the end of 2008, they began December against a three-win Oakland team and two-win Kansas City.
In 2009, the Chargers were a game ahead of Denver with five games to play – just two against teams with winning records.
The Chargers won all 15 of the games alluded to above – against teams with a .423 winning percentage.
Now, it hasn’t been all patsies.
While the Chargers did get the Raiders (4-10 when they met) and New York Giants (5-7) last December, they also beat Denver (11-2) and Kansas City (11-4) in that four-game win streak to close the season and get into the playoffs. Remember, though, the Chargers caught the Broncos complacent, and Kansas City started its “B” team in the final week.
Won’t happen this time. All the teams the Chargers will play are in the same situation as them, fighting for a playoff spot (or a first-round bye) in the tightly bunched AFC.
“Everybody is still in the mix,” Antonio Gates said, “All those teams are vying for playoff spots. Everyone they have is going to be playing.”
There has not been a finish in the Rivers era that rivals the next six weeks.
“Nowhere near,” Gates said. “Gotta go get it this year. Not to take anything away from those teams, but it’s going to be well-deserved this year if we get to the postseason.”
So often, too, the Chargers had the Raiders as a December gift.
Rivers has faced Oakland five times in December and won all five, including when the victory was paramount to a playoff push in 2008 and ’13.
The Chargers got their second victory of the season over the Raiders on Sunday. In fact, Oakland is the only team the Chargers have beat in the past five games. The Raiders are other people’s pastry now.
The only team with a losing record on the Chargers’ schedule is St. Louis. The combined record of their final six opponents is 38-22, giving them the second-hardest closing stretch behind Seattle (41-19). The Seahawks play the Arizona Cardinals (9-1) twice in the final six weeks.
After the Rams, the Chargers go to Baltimore (6-4), are back home against New England (8-2) and Denver (7-3) and then on the road at San Francisco (6-4) and Kansas City (7-4).
“It’s going to be fun,” Rivers said. “It’s going to be exciting for all of us. Just as it is for us, it’s like that for all the other teams that are in that pack. Everybody we (play) is in that boat.”
That won’t make it any easier either.
But the Chargers don’t do easy. No matter how much they would have liked to.
“In a perfect world we wouldn’t have left it like this,” Weddle said. “But that’s where we’re at. We go beat them, we earned our way in.”
True. It’s not what they wanted. Maybe it’s what they needed.
