Seattle was nice, Buffalo is bigger
If last Sunday represented a signature victory, then this is the dotted line, the place where the Chargers make it official that they are different.
Here they are, having lost their opener after holding a double-digit lead in the fourth quarter, then winning their second game on short rest against a team very few believed they would beat and now flying high as they head across the country for their third game.
Again. This is exactly the same situation as 2013, except that the Chargers say they’re different.
That is what makes Sunday’s game against the Buffalo Bills something like a must-win.
Of course, it is not a have-to in the accepted sense of a loss dooming their playoff chances. But a championship team doesn’t go week to week in the same manner I give up carbs -- back and forth, back and forth.
It is actually because the Chargers’ season is just beginning that they need to establish what type of team they are.
“It’s more important than the last one was, because we’re coming off a big win,” cornerback Shareece Wright said. “Usually things don’t go as well the following week . . . We want to make sure we play good, be consistent. That’s something we struggled with last year. We’re a new team this year, so we don’t want to follow those trends.”
Perfectly stated.
The Chargers’ L-W-L-W-L start last season, which included the loss of late leads against Houston and Tennessee and a stinker at Oakland, almost left them at home at playoff time.
Put together a couple wins then, and they don’t have to go through December being perfect and relying on the kindness of strangers.
“The past four years we’ve been win one, lose one,” Philip Rivers said. “We’ve never really stung wins together. It is important we start stacking wins on top of one another.”
Sooner than later.
The Chargers’ 28-30 record in the first half of the past seven seasons is tied for 17th in the NFL, while their 38-18 record is tied for second-best.
The Chargers desperate finishes are to be admired and also loathed. Their 32-5 record after November is second-best in the NFL since Rivers became their starting quarterback in 2006. Perfect finishes earned them postseason berths in 2007, ’08 and ’13 after they went a combined 14-21 in the first three months of those seasons. Going 7-2 to finish ’10 couldn’t make up for a 2-5 start, a 4-1 closing stretch in ’11 and 3-1 end to’12 also were too little, too late.
Their victory over Seattle was actually not all that difficult to predict (as I did and Nick Canepa copied me). Such a rising-up has been fairly common in the Rivers era.
Too often, the swell is followed by a crash.
Last year, they expressed confidence they were coming together after shocking Indianapolis and then starting their bye early with a game at winless Jacksonville. They returned from their week off with a loss at Washington that began a three-game slide. In 2012, a win at Pittsburgh was followed by a 31-7 loss at home to Carolina, the margin tied for largest home loss since 2002. They got to 4-1 with a victory at Denver in 2011, only to lose six straight. They beat Peyton Manning’s Indianapolis Colts in late November 2010 to keep their playoff hopes alive but returned home and got run over by Oakland the next week.
Not this year, not if they’re different.
“It’s a win,” safety Darrell Stuckey said immediately after the victory against Seattle. We can’t put an asterisk on a win. At the end of the day, it’s just one win. We have to keep going, because if we don’t come out next week and play like we need to . . . We set a standard today, and we have to fulfill that every week.”
Other captains echoed the sentiment this week. Not having letdown was stressed every day. Practices, according to those who participated and watched, were excellent.
“I think we’ll handle winning (and) winning against the team we won against just fine,” Rivers said. “It’s too early in the season. It’s not like we went to 10-1. It was our first win of the season.”
It’s just words until there is a tangible action.
Now they need a second in a row.
The effect of the victory over Seattle was the bolstering of the belief they are championship caliber.
“Games like this give you condfidence,” Antonio Gates said as he walked from Qualcomm Stadium last Sunday. “. . . We have to somehow get results out of preparation and hard work.”
As much as anything, the Chargers must prove to themselves Sunday that they are who they think they are. It won’t hurt a relatively young team coming off a playoff year but still wondering about its place among the elite to continue being puffed up and gain some momentum as they prepare to host the Jacksonville Jaguars and New York Jets the following two weeks.
A loss Sunday? Picture a balloon with its air rapidly leaking, it eventually lying flat on the ground, seeming even less impressive than before it ever got pumped up.
It won’t be impossible to inflate again. It just might not be as magnificent as initially perceived.
