Chargers finish last home game with a win
Listen to this articleOriginally I’m from Milwaukee, WI and the Green Bay Packers are my #1 team. But after living in San Diego for over two decades I’ve become a San Diego Chargers fan as well. I know most of the names on the roster by sight and I can even tell you who are the stand out players on the offense and defense.
I’ve been to a few Chargers games in my day, including one in the late ’90’s when the Packers beat the Chargers in Jack Murphy Stadium, before the renovations and name change to Qualcomm Stadium. so when it comes to football, I watch the San Diego Chargers every week; either at home in front of the 55-inch hi def wonder, or in the stands in wonderment at the grand spectacle of a live NFL football game, amongst 60,000 other screaming fans.
The San Diego Chargers finished their final home game of the season with a win against the extremely challenged Miami Dolphins. But it felt a lot like saying good-bye, not just because it was the final home game of the season, but because many fans and most of the players, coaches and announcers felt like this was the last game the Chargers would play in San Diego.
The town the Chargers have called home since 1961; the town that celebrated “Air Coryel,” the high-flying passing game with Hall-of-Fame quarterback Dan Fouts throwing for 43,040 yards and 254 touchdowns.
This was the home of Kellen Winslow, the tight end who caught many of those passes by Fouts. Chuck Muncie, who ran the ball and caught many of those passes; and wide receivers Wes Chandler and Charlie Joiner.
That was the 1980’s. In the following decade the Chargers had Junior Seau, the Oceanside kid who became a Pro Bowl linebacker, a man who played with so much focus and ferocity it set a new standard for linebackers. Quarterback Stan Humphries called Qualcomm Stadium home when he played for the Chargers, as did Natrone Means, LaDanian Tomlinson and Leslie O’Neal.
Long time Chargers fans can tick off a long list of names going back 54 years, players that made an impact on the game of football, but more importantly on the team and the city of San Diego.
The Chargers have spent all but one year of their existence here in San Diego. The team started in Los Angeles in 1960 and then moved to San Diego the following year.
For over 20 years Southern California, with its 20-30 million residents, had only two professional football teams: the Los Angeles Rams ands the San Diego Chargers. The Raiders made a move from Oakland to L.A. in the 1980’s, but soon returned to Oakland.
In 1995 the Chagres became the only professional — NFL — team in Southern California when Georgia Frontiere moved the Rams from Anaheim to St. Louis, MO, after the Cardinals moved to Arizona. She had moved the team from the L.A. Coliseum to Anaheim in 1980.
So, for the past 20 years the San Diego Chargers have been the only NFL team in Southern California, in the sixth largest media market in America. What beckoned the Spanos Family, the current owners of the Chargers, was the second largest media market in America: Los Angeles.
The team has been heading in the direction for at least five years as they reject offers, all at the last hour, from the City of San Diego to stay.
For many inside the world and business of the NFL, the Chargers moving to L.A. seemed like a foregone conclusion. During the game one of the announcers was describing a play by quarterback Philip Rivers. The announcer actually said, “… as Rivers plays his final game at Qualcomm Stadium …” Wow. It was just a slip of the tongue no doubt, but it said something about the mindset of the people closest to the game and the league. After this season the Chargers will not be coming back to San Diego.
We will have to wait until spring to get the official word from the NFL about whether the Chargers can move or not, but to hear the announcers and some of the players talk, that seemed like a minor technicality.
So, the Chargers themselves felt the importance of this game and what it would mean to the city and the history of the franchise. If they were only going to win one more game this season, it had to be this last home game against the Miami Dolphins. The fans that have stuck by the team — and let’s be honest, the Chargers had some pretty lean years attendance-wise since going to Super Bowl XXIX in January 1995 — those fans that buy season tickets and show up game-after-game, year-after-year and watch on the TV’s or in sports bars across Southern California, they deserved to see this game end with a “W.”
After the game quarterback Philip Rivers told reporters, “It was a special day, if it is the last one, that was kind of what I told the guys before the game: they’ve been playing football in this town before any of us were born. There are people that are going to be at that game today that were coming to games before we were born.
“We get to close it out. If it is the end, we get to finish it off. Hopefully, the fans that have seen it over the years and the players that have played in there can be proud today that we at least ended it the right way.”
So that’s what the Chargers did: they ended it the right way with a decisive, dominating win over the Dolphins. Donald Brown came in for the injured Melvin Gordon and ran for 90 yards on 12 carries. Gordon had 41 yards on 15 carries.
Antonio Gates caught six passes for 88 yards and Danny Woodhead caught six for 50 yards and three touchdowns. He scored a fourth touchdown running the ball.
Malcolm Floyd caught one pass for 27 yards. He is retiring after this season so this was definitely his last game as a San Diego Chargers.
Philip Rivers passed for 311 yards, with three touchdowns and two interceptions — and on one of those interceptions the defender fumbled the ball and Rivers recovered it. What an epically fairytale play to have during your final game.
Defensively the Chargers kept Ryan Tannehill and the Dolphins scoreless in the first half. The only allowed 44 rushing yards and 216 passing yards. Miami managed two touchdowns in the game and they were never in a position to take over the lead.
Manti Te’o, Denzel Perryman, Melvin Ingram, Jason Verrett, Jahleel Addae and Jeremiah Attaochu owned the Miami Dolphins on Sunday.
With 37 seconds left in the game there was hardly a dry eye in the stadium as Chargers head coach called the team’s three most beloved stars off the field for the last time: Malcolm Floyd, Antonio Gates and Philip Rivers. The capacity crowd in Qualcomm Stadium, surrounding Jack Murphy Field, erupted into a thunderous applause as the stadium announcer Dennis Packer called their names for possibly the last time.
The final score was 30-14.
After the game the members of the Chargers lingered on the field, signing autographs and talking to fans, for what many believe will be the final time.
And then it was time for Philip Rivers to address the media. What does it mean to Rivers, to have been the QB in San Diego for so long? Verging on tears, he said, “If you’re a quarterback in the NFL and you’re blessed enough, as I have, to stay in the same place for 12 years, you become the quarterback for that town.”
Yeah, like Dan Fouts and Stan Humphries before him, Philip Rivers is San Diego’s quarterback and from the looks of it, neither the fans nor Rivers want that to change any time soon.
It remains to be seen if the NFL Committee on L.A. Opportunities gives the green light to the Chargers. Both the Rams and Oakland are interested in Los Angeles as well.
If this was indeed the final home game of the San Diego Chargers, it was a memorable one.
Tim Forkes started as a writer on a small alternative newspaper in Milwaukee called the Crazy Shepherd. Writing about entertainment, he had the opportunity to speak with many people in show business, from the very famous to the people struggling to find an audience. In 1992 Tim moved to San Diego, CA and pursued other interests, but remained a freelance writer. Upon arrival in Southern California he was struck by how the elected government officials and business were so intertwined, far more so than he had witnessed in Wisconsin. His interest in entertainment began to wane and the business of politics took its place. He had always been interested in politics, his mother had been a Democratic Party official in Milwaukee, WI, so he sat down to dinner with many of Wisconsin’s greatest political names of the 20th Century: William Proxmire and Clem Zablocki chief among them. As a Marine Corps veteran, Tim has a great interest in veteran affairs, primarily as they relate to the men and women serving and their families. As far as Tim is concerned, the military-industrial complex has enough support. How the men and women who serve are treated is reprehensible, while in the military and especially once they become veterans. Tim would like to help change that.