PERTINENT DATA: 9-7 last year; 11 to 1 odds to win Super Bowl XLVI.
BEST CASE SCENARIO (Neil): The Chargers are a weird team. They always seem like they should be a lot better than they are. Well, actually it’s not really that weird when you consider that Norv Turner is the coach of this team. How does that dude still have a job? Consider this: last season the Chargers finished first in the NFL in total offense. They also finished first in the NFL in total defense. Think about that for a minute. That means that they gained more yardage than any other team in the league last year – more than the Packers, more than Michael Vick and the Eagles, more than Tom Brady’s Patriots, more than Peyton Manning’s Colts, more than that ghost team led by Red Grange that mysteriously appeared in late November and ran wild over everyone until the Ghostbusters showed up and killed them and caused all of New York City to be covered in Marshmallow goo (Wait, that was just Marshmallow goo . . . right?) The Chargers were better offensively than all of them. Everybody. There was not a football team in the world that moved the ball more than the Chargers last season. That’s impressive enough on its own. Then when you consider that they gave up less yardage than anyone else – less than the Steelers, less than the Packers or the Ravens or anyone else, real or imagined by my diseased brain – that shit becomes damn near remarkable. That’s a well-oiled machine right there, right? Yeah, about that . . . that no doubt 14-2 team went 9-7 and missed the playoffs. 9-7! And missed the playoffs! How in the fuck does that even happen? Norv Turner, Norv Tuner, Norv Turner Norv Turner, Norv Tuner, Norv Turner Norv Turner, Norv Tuner, Norv Turner Norv Turner, Norv Tuner, Norv Turner Norv Turner, Norv Tuner, Norv Turner Norv Turner, Norv Tuner, Norv Turner Norv Turner, Norv Tuner, Norv Turner Norv Turner, Norv Tuner, Norv Turner Norv Turner, Norv Tuner, Norv Turner Norv Turner, Norv Tuner, Norv Turner Norv Turner, Norv Tuner, Norv Turner Norv Turner, Norv Tuner, Norv Turner Norv Turner, Norv Tuner, Norv Turner Norv Turner, Norv Tuner, Norv Turner Norv Turner, Norv Tuner, Norv Turner Norv Turner, Norv Tuner, Norv Turner Norv Turner, Norv Tuner, Norv Turner Norv Turner, Norv Tuner, Norv Turner Norv Turner, Norv Tuner, Norv Turner Norv Turner, Norv Tuner, Norv Turner Norv Turner, Norv Tuner, Norv Turner Norv Turner, Norv Tuner, Norv Turner Norv Turner, Norv Tuner, Norv Turner Norv Turner, Norv Tuner, Norv Turner Norv Turner, Norv Tuner, Norv Turner Norv Turner, Norv Tuner, Norv Turner Norv Turner, Norv Tuner, Norv Turner Norv Turner, Norv Tuner, Norv Turner Norv Turner, Norv Tuner, Norv Turner Norv Turner, Norv Tuner, Norv Turner Norv Turner, Norv Tuner, Norv Turner Norv Turner, Norv Tuner, Norv Turner Norv Turner, Norv Tuner, Norv Turner Norv Turner, Norv Tuner, Norv Turner Norv Turner, Norv Tuner, Norv Turner Norv Turner, Norv Tuner, Norv Turner.
That’s how that shit happens. So yeah, the best case scenario for the Chargers is what it always is: Norv Turner finds all his shit in a box outside his office just before the season starts or he falls down a manhole or is carried away and sold into prostitution by Tijuana drug lords or he’s eaten by wolves or angry Chargers fans. Whatever. It doesn’t matter. As long as he’s not the Chargers head coach. That’s their best case scenario.
WORST CASE SCENARIO (Raven): Norv Turner doesn't die and coaches the Chargers all season long, especially in the playoffs.
PLAYER TO PULL FOR (Neil): I am torn between Antonio Gates and Bob Sanders, and I am torn for stupid reasons. The truth is that I don’t really know that much about either dude personally. Shit, for all I know, Antonio Gates could have hooker parts buried in his backyard and Bob Sanders might spend all his downtime flashing old ladies on the street and strangling stray dogs because it gives him an erection. I don’t know. What I do know is that Antonio Gates started off as a middling basketball player and then stumbled ass backwards into a Hall of Fame career as an NFL tight end. That is some American dream shit right there, vaguely dumb and undeserved, but what the hell, he got his and good for him. Some will say you should hate him because he stole a job from dudes who had been training since birth to be NFL players but, really, fuck those dudes and their stupid dreams. The world is a brutal and cruel place, unfair and without mercy or reason and Antonio Gates managed to win and I can’t hate on a man for that. That may sound cynical as hell, but just remember that I am optimist at heart and that’s what makes my optimism so compelling. I think the world is everything I just said but I still believe in a thing called love and in the power of hope and, what the hell, that probably just makes me a damn fool, but the world needs more damn fools who smile at the abyss and think despite their own savage reason that they can jump that fucking thing and it needs more dudes getting by like Antonio Gates despite the rules and crazy orders of this fucked up world. He gives hope to a freak like me. His path to salvation was strange and unnatural, but fuck normal and natural. I don’t even know what I’m rambling on about. Fuck it. This thing is a disaster but who cares?
Meanwhile, Bob Sanders is a little dude who will end up retarded and drinking his meals through a straw and getting his ass wiped by a nurse by the time he’s 40 and I can respect a man like that. There is something about him that is vaguely loathsome and annoying, but I am in a weird mood right now. I don’t know what’s happening. I both hate and love everything at the same time. I want to hug my enemies and gnaw on the bones of my friends. I want to shake hands with a snake and punch Mother Theresa right in her whore mouth. What am I even saying? I don’t know. I think I might be in the midst of a psychotic break but I can’t be sure. I’m going to stick myself with needles for a few hours and hang out in the woods speaking with the spirits of the ancient Indian warriors who used to roam these lands. I’ll be back later. Don’t go away.
PLAYER TO HATE MOST (Raven): Unfortunately, with Shawne Merriman gone, there's no over the top obvious dumbass to hate upon, so you have to go for the less obvious, namely Phillip Rivers, who somehow continues to get the PR that he is an upper echelon QB. I guess he might be, but I actually know of three different people that have interacted with that guy in real life, him being a college boy from N.C. State, and Piedmont Carolina/Virginia being my main stomping grounds, and all three of them pretty much were like, "That guy is like the worst fucker ever. What a dick. Fuck him." So he and Norv Turner go well together. In comparison, Jim Kelly, who is not really on my list of favorites or anything, I know a dude that did valet parking or something and Jim Kelly pulled up one time, and the guy took the keys and Jim Kelly was like, "Your tip's in the ash tray buddy, sorry, I gotta roll," and when my friend got in the car, there was a big ol' fat joint for my boy. Now that's classy. Fuck you Phillip Rivers.
BEST NAME ON TEAM: Scott Mruczkowski, because I will always give daps to big ugly white dudes with the "cz" consonant combo in their last name, in honor of the ever-living warrior viking spirit of Justin Strzelczyk.
IN A PERFECT WORLD (Neil): Okay, I’m back. I ended up waking up in the sand dunes, covered in beach grass, and I’m pretty sure that I was taken by a vengeful Potawatomi warrior spirit, angry because I have stolen his lands, and that he was trying to build some sort of pyre and then he and his friends were going to burn me alive. Horrible, horrible . . . but that is the risk you take when you commune with the ancients. I’m back home now and I feel better. Frightened, but better. I am more sure of my own sense of morality, my own sense of right and wrong and I have decided that no one on the Chargers is especially worthy of your love or affection. I have spoken. But, wait, we’re past that part in the preview, aren’t we? This is the In a Perfect World Section and so I guess I should tell you that in a perfect world Norv Turner would be chased out of San Diego by furious Chargers fans and then he would be forced to move into the guest house of his old boss, Jimmy Johnson and then he’d come home one night to find Jimmy fucking his wife in the pool and then they’d get in a fight but because Norv is such an ineffectual toad, Jimmy would just laugh at him and Norv would be kicked out and forced to wander the streets and try to comprehend how he came to such desperate straits, and he would live out his days sobbing in a shitty motel room, paying a raggedy old hooker to burn him with cigarettes because at least pain is a feeling and it reminds him of his own tragic failures both as a man and a football coach and deep down, Norv understand, only all too well, that it’s important to never forget the truth.
PROGNOSIS (Raven): The AFC West is terrible, so 13-3 and home court advantage for the Chargers is gonna happen, which will make their divisional round playoff loss even more funny, as all those fucking SAN DIEGO! SUPERCHARGERS! fans will have two weeks to hype themselves into a frenzy that this year is finally the year. Chargers fans are kinda easy to hate for some reason. They are NFL fan bottom feeders.
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