Power outage

Sporting News, The, Dec 19, 1994 by Terry Frei

At age 46, venerable San Diego Magazine is the pioneer of glossy, upscale city magazines. True to the elite end of its market, it runs a monthly America's Cup Watch column about rich guys and their boats and reminds readers where to find Vuarnet watches, Tiffany pearls or the best shrimp flambe. On the magazine's December cover, the Chargers - wearing those baby-blue throwback uniforms - are trotting in line during a pregame warmup, and at mid-month the teaser still screams from the newsstand rack: "THE BOLT IS BACK!"

At the magazine's deadline, that was sensible and appropriate. But each week during the issue's shelf life, the declaration has seemed more outdated, and by the end of the month, it might even come off as italicized irony, best read aloud with a smirk.

Such is one of the risks inherent in monthly publication, and the weeklies that had the Chargers on their covers during their 6-0 start - The Sporting News, for example, labeled them "SUPER CHARGERS" on the front of the October 17 issue - at least can take solace that we had somebody else on the cover by the time the banged-up Chargers started sputtering.

Perhaps it all was wishful thinking and not just in the region where Dennis Conner's every move - at the helm and on the shore - is chronicled. Monty Python was the latest in the line of searchers for the Holy Grail; all we want to discover is an AFC team capable of injecting some suspense in the Super Bowl beyond the third quarter and to keep Uncle Ernie from making too many trips to the cooler. Somebody. Anybody to provide enough of a challenge on Super Bowl Sunday to make us believe that the NFC championship game hadn't been the true Super Bowl, after all. Anybody to keep the 49ers or Cowboys from starting to celebrate another Super Bowl victory on the Joe Robbie Stadium sideline before the end of the Bud Bowl.

Anybody isn't going to be San Diego.

Pittsburgh? Perhaps.

Cleveland? Conceivably. Just ask the Cowboys.

Miami? Maybe.

San Diego? Certainly not.

Although the 9-5 Chargers still lead the AFC West by a game and likely will be in the playoffs, their loss to the 49ers at Jack Murphy Stadium last Sunday underlined what had become apparent as the euphoria of early October evaporated. The 49ers have made a lot of teams appear overmatched, so it wasn't just what happened last Sunday; this was part of a gradually building case against the Chargers as an early season fluke.

"I think they're an awful good football team," Chargers Coach Bobby Ross says of the 49ers. "But I still feel - and I told our team this - that I don't think that they're 37-15 better than we are. Even with what we have."

Ross, of course, was correct ... in a way.

The 49ers, who all but wrapped up the home-field advantage through the NFC playoffs, actually beat the Chargers 38-15 - and they were that much better.

The Chargers' fast start is dismissible history, a cruel tease for San Diego fans, even if 49ers linebacker Gary Plummer, an ex-Charger, tried to be nice after playing against his former teammates.

I don't think it was an aberration," Plummer says of the Chargers' start. "Not at all. They came out and played extremely well because they're well-coached and they have talent. Right now they're suffering from the same thing we suffered from early in the season. That's injuries. They're so difficult to overcome when you don't have the quality backups a team like the 49ers have. That's something that the salary cap has affected for every team in the NFL, but you've probably seen an effect in the Chargers more so than with any other team."

Read between the fines there: The 49ers twisted, juggled, worked the numbers, finding room for veteran players such as Plummer and retaining depth. A few Chargers get hurt, and they're looking like the Bengals without the stripes. And Plummer can joke about looking up at the boxes and seeing club Owner Alex Spanos and Vice Chairman Dean Spanos joining in the booing of Plummer early in the game on Sunday.

"I'm glad things worked out the way they did because I'm with the best organization in football, and I hope I'll be coming back to San Diego with a Super Bowl ring," Plummer says. "One thing that's always happened with the 49ers is that they've had the best record in football in December over the last 15 years in the NFL. And the reason for that is that we don't hit during the week. It's a great organization, a great situation to be in. I'm 34, will be 35 during the Super Bowl, and to play in this organization, I think I can play three or four more years. Whereas if you're in an organization where you have to play smashmouth on Wednesday or Thursday, it's difficult to stay focused and ready in December because you're beat up."

Hmmmmm.

The Chargers are beat up. It's December.

"My suggestion to them is to practice without pads all week long and try and get healthy," Plummer says. "They have the talent. They showed that early in the year."

Then again, maybe this was inevitable. Even the guy who wears the huge lightning bolt on his head and wanders around Jack Murphy - could that be the Orange County investments adviser? - must have known that the ball wasn't going to slip out of John Elway's hand all season and known that the Chargers' term as the 1994 AFC Team of Destiny was destined to be short-lived. Remember? The Chargers won their opener at Denver when Elway rolled right in the final seconds, spotted ex-Charger Anthony Miller alone in the end zone, tried to throw - and saw the ball slip out of his grasp, into Junior Seau's hands. The Chargers used that as an emotional springboard to their 6-0 start, and it seemed that the stars were aligned above San Diego's Mission Valley.