Chargers Froggie; Chiefs Croak

After losing their first five games of the year, the Kansas City Chiefs finally notched a win last month against the woeful Washington Redskins. After a rebuilding effort, they traveled to the equally woeful Oakland Raiders' house and beat them. Then, feeling themselves on a stretch roll, they upset the defending champion Pittsburgh Steelers last week, turning their win against Oakland into an actual winning streak. In spite of their thumping of the Steelers in overtime last week, this writer held little hope that Kansas City would continue to be successful in their struggle to load their plates with something other than the sludge at the bottom of the division pond. But in the world of professional football, one just never knows. After all, while the Chiefs were busy beating the Steelers last week, were not the Oakland Raiders, contenders with the Chiefs for the bottom rung of the AFC West ladder, beating the then 7-3 Cincinatti Bengals? Why, yes they were, grasshopper. So you see, one must constantly marshall one's inner resources no matter the crappiness of the opponent, lest one fine onesself the current victim of said crappiness, as the Steelers and Bengals were last week.

Our intrepid San Diego Chargers, having spent the last five weeks piling up win after win and improving each week upon the previous one, finally culminating last week in the dethroning of the plummeting Denver Broncos for the division lead, thus handing Denver a deja vu moment, as just a month ago they enjoyed a 3 1/2 game lead in the division and their lead seemed insurmountable, much as happened at the end of the year just one season ago.

This game started off with a battle for field position, and for the first half of the first quarter, the Chiefs enjoyed a great advantage in that category, having backed San Diego up to the goal line on a couple of punt exchanges. Then, ineptitude found its first seat on Kansas City quarterback Matt Cassal's shoulder, as he dropped back to pass and rifled the ball right onto the top of the helmet of Chargers lineman Ogembi don't-ask-me-to-pronounce-it-I-can-barely-type-it Nuagbuo from a distance of about four feet.  The ball caromed into the air with great energy, as if trying to attain escape velocity, but eventually it had to come down, and when it did, San Diego's own Quentin Jammer was waiting for it and the Chargers were in business at the 39 yard line. Rivers wasted no time in capitalizing on the turnover, driving down the field on passes mostly to Antonio Gates, who was the star on this day, and who received an 18-yard touchdown pass to finish the drive.

Kansas City, not to be outdone, and determined to bolster their newfound feistiness and stay in this game, matched the Chargers with a drive of their own of 8 plays covering 91 yards to score their own touchdown and tie the game at 7. Unfortunately for the Chiefs, they had now exhausted their weekly supply of competitiveness and competence, and they gave the ball back to San Diego on fumbles three of the next four times they had the ball. The fourth time they got off easy; they punted. By halftime the game was essentially over, as our Chargers sauntered into the locker room carrying a happy 28-7 lead with them while the Chiefs tried to decide how they could best speed up the clock and go home to strong drinks and sympathetic (if they're smart) families. The holes in the Chief's feet from them shooting themselves in the foot over and over again were only matched by the snake bite marks on their ankles. I mean at one point Cassel dropped back to pass and when he brought his arm back, why the ball just slipped right out of his hand and landed in the hand of Paul Oliver of the Chargers, who took this gift some 60 yards for a touchdown. On TWO separate occasions their center just snapped the ball right over poor Cassel's head. When was the last time you saw THAT happen twice in one game?

San Diego continued to roll in this game and finally the foregone conclusion was reached: 43-17. Kansas City trudged off the field and the Chargers exited with cartwheels. LaDanian Tomlinson passed Marcus Allen and Edgerrin James to make the top ten list of yardage leaders in the history of the NFL, and while much has been made these past couple of weeks of LaDainian's touchdown runs, the fact is that if the Chargers running game has stopped being suspect, it's only because it has now been tried and convicted. These guys still cannot run the ball. They have not been able to run the ball all year against anybody, no matter how pathetic the opponent, and I saw nothing in this game that would bring me hope that is going to change any time soon. Of course, Phillip Rivers has only been sacked five times in the 172 times he has dropped back to pass over the last six games, and as long as THAT continues, they'll be fine. Who really needs to run the ball anyway, when you have wide receivers that tower into the heavens like redwoods, and your quarterback possesses the precision of a neurosurgeon? Poor Matt Cassel has now played against San Diego three times over the last two seasons and his passer rating over those three games is 53.4. By comparison, Rivers's rating in this game was 138.5. His highlight on this day was a play where he dropped back to pass, stepped up, and launched that ball downfield. It left his hand, spinning like a bullet from a gun. It flew down the field far into the sky, and when it came down into Malcom Floyd's outstretched hands some 60 yards later, it did so with the precision of a laser guided missile. A fabulous thing of beauty.

Rivers's 138.5 passer rating on the day is, for the uninitiated, is a FABULOUS passer rating, and watching Phillip Rivers carve opposing defenses up like Christmas hams is a pure-dee pleasure. Of course, on Monday night I happened to tune in to watch the giant showdown between the Patriots and Tom Brady and the Saints and our own ex, Drew Brees. It's hard not to root for the Saints and Drew, as he was an all-pro when we dumped him like last year's prom date, and he has been butchering everybody he goes up against this year. Monday night, billed as the battle of the titans, was more like a slap-down of a bully on a girl scout. Brees was absolutely flawless in his 38-17 demolishing of the Patriots, throwing five touchdowns to five different receivers and finishing the game with a perfect passer rating of 158.3; only the third time in Monday Night Football history that has been accomplished. But I sense some confusion in my blessed readers about this passer rating that I keep referring to, so I'm going to clear it up for you right now. I know that nobody has really explained this to you coherently before, so now I'm going to tell you how these passer ratings are figured so from now on, if you want to, you can just work out your favorite passer's game rating for yourself. How cool is THAT? Okay, ready? Here's how you do it:

In order to establish a maximum value for an NFL player's passer rating, a separate calculation needs to be completed involving each of the following four categories: Completion Percentage, Average Yards Per Attempt, Percentage of Touchdown Passes, and Percentage of Interceptions. If the result in any category is less than 0, the given result should be 0. If the result in any category is greater than 2.375, the given result should be 2.375. This makes the maximum possible quarterback rating for the NFL 158.3. A perfect rating requires at least a 77.5% completion rate, at least 12.5 yards per attempt, a touchdown on at least 11.875% of attempts, and no interceptions. Thus it's a simple matter of this formula:

Then use the above calculations to complete the passer rating:

This can be shown simplified as:

So now, good readers, you can calculate passer ratings on your own and the next time somebody asks you what a quarterback's passer rating was for a game, you can just say: "Just a sec; I'll figure it for you."

Now as a reward for their excellent play during their six-game winning streak and their demolishing of the Chiefs, NFL commissioner Paul Tagliabu called up Chargers general manager A.J. Smith after the game to congratulate him and ask him who he wanted to play next. "Well," A.J. mused, "We are a bit banged up defensively. We could use some rest. Who's the worst team in the league?" "Well," Tagliabu responded, "There are a couple of contenders, but the Cleveland Browns have only won one game all year. They might be a good candidate." "SWELL!" Said A.J. "We'll take it!" And so the Chargers will be traveling back to Cleveland this next week in hopes of running their winning stream to seven games by taking on a the Browns, a team that has only won one game all year and they didn't even score a touchdown in THAT one, having won it by a score of 6-3 in a game that won the award for Most Boring And Futile Game Of The Year.

Expect San Diego to rest the likes of Shawne Merriman, Eric Weddle, and anybody else who so much as breaks a shoestring this coming week. After all, they have to get ready to play an actual football team for a change in Dallas after this game, and they want everybody to be at full capacity. I'm going to go out on a limb here and predict that the Chargers will extend their streak with a win in Cleveland this week as long as they can keep themselves from falling asleep, only to wake up and realize that even the Browns are capable of making a play or two.