San Diego Chargers: Is the Team Primed for a 2011 Super Bowl Run?

The San Diego Chargers have been Super Bowl contenders since their 14-2 season back in 2006, when Philip Rivers became the team's starting quarterback and LaDainian Tomlinson became a legend.

Since then, the Chargers have associated themselves with the most damning phrase in sports: Chokes. 

That's because, for the past five years, the team has failed to get it done in the postseason. More often than not, this is because of poor play-calling and silly mistakes, not because of the lack of talent.

This year's different, though. And though this might be the perspective of a Chargers' fan, but hear me out.

Every year since the Chargers first successful year, the media's over-hyped the Chargers. The talking heads on television couldn't help but make the Chargers their Super Bowl favorites; they couldn't help but make the team entitled.

That Chargers arrogance that you could smell from your living room was nauseating. Rivers and former Chargers linebacker Shawne Merriman were the cockiest son-of-a-guns the team has seen, and there was no way around the fact that they felt they were supposed to win a Super Bowl. 

Now, things are different. Way different. Scary different. The window of opportunity is closing. 

The team is realizing what it takes to get to a Super Bowl. The realize it takes grit, toughness and a resolve that a freight train from hell can't deter. 

It's going to take balls. 

And the team's hungry enough to use whatever it can; it's no longer the motivation to prove anyone right or wrong. No, the motivation is now to prove to themselves if they were able to do what they've been wanting to do for years.

Work their tails off every week of the NFL season and emerge champions when it's all said and done. 

We know what the Chargers work ethic is like—their slow starts epitomize just how California these guys are—always late to the party. They're never the guys who show up early to help things set up; they're the cool guys over there, who came in late because this particular party might not have meant much to them. 

Now, these kids are older. Philip Rivers is no longer the over-confident jerk he was, Norv Turner now realizes how important it is for his team to start fast and finish strong, and the entire team is finally putting together pieces they've been missing on and off for years. 

This team can no longer believe they're the team to beat; in 2009, that was the thinking, and the result ended with the team getting drunk before their game against the New York Jets.

The Chargers have been beaten down, embarrassed and left out in the cold. They've had a long offseason to think about what went wrong and how they could be so stupid. They have always had the young talent, but how the hell could they let five perfectly great seasons go to waste? 

The San Diego Chargers are primed for a Super Bowl run. They've been on the radar for years, and that's never a good thing—you never want to be the team everyone wants to beat. 

Not in the NFL. Not when coaches are foxes and can work harder and better than the favorites to ensure a victory. Not when the players who have nothing to lose play the guys who have everything to lose. When all of your chips—a great season, Pro Bowl berths, "Super Bowl favorites" label—are on the table, and you're playing the guy everyone forgot about, you're in trouble. 

That's what the Chargers are now. No one is going to buy into the bull that they bought into for five years. No one thinks this team will ever get a title. The insatiable hunger for a championship ring after hitting rock bottom is violent. Missing the playoffs after getting confident and referring back to the "Oh, we'll figure it out later in the season" is going to bite you, hard. 

Nothing hurts more than coming close and losing, except this: Knowing you could have come close but knowing you didn't want to work hard to put yourself in that position. 

This team is violently hungry. We've heard the talks before, but this time, there isn't much talking. The Chargers' silence is telling us a lot. It's telling us they're going to finally let their play do the talking. No one's going to tell them that they're Super Bowl contenders, so no one's going to taunt them if they can't do it. 

They're the ones with nothing to lose.

I can spew out all the statistics you want; I—along with thousands of Chargers' fans—have been spewing them to you for years. We've been showing you Rivers' stat-line in bold lettering, the defense's numbers, the disparity in points scored between the Chargers and their opponents, everything.

We showed them to you last year. And we got a (deserved) laugh in the face.

Because our stats mean nothing; the team ranked first in the league in passing yards; they ranked first in points allowed; they ranked first in passing yards allowed.

Who gives a crap anymore?

The Chargers shouldn't.

The Pro Bowl berths, the playoff record since 2006, their regular season record since 2004, and the prestige associated with their name can go to hell.

It's about the Chargers, and the Chargers only. There's no one out there that thinks the team will succeed.

That needs to be the mindset: No one thinks we'll finish it. 

 It's a cliche notion—motivating oneself by proving others wrong. In this case, though, it can't have a better application.

The Chargers are in everyone's back burner. No one wants to pay attention to them, leaving the door wide open for one more shot.

This is it. No one expects the Bolts to finish what they started.

This time, they'll surprise everyone rather than disappoint.