Beat the Oakland Raiders and the 3rd seed in the AFC Playoffs is locked, that’s all the game was about.
The Chargers battled the Raiders in the last week of the NFL regular season, in hostile territory, and out of the box the game looked close. Operative word in the last sentence being: looked. Up until the half it appeared that the Raiders weren’t going to roll over. A meager 14-10 deficit and the imminent benching of the San Diego playmakers made the outlook for the third quarter quite positive. However, Raiders quarterback JaMarcus Russell showed little poise coming out of [...]

After my last BoltBeat entry, honestly, I had a hard time getting hyped for the game. I thought it would be at least reasonably close. I figured that my pervasive prognosticating could get the mild mannered readership to tune in with hopes of a tight contest. As it turns out, it wasn’t even close to being a close game. It was the intrepid vs. the insipid.
The San Diego Chargers beat the Denver Broncos quite handedly in a 23-3 victory that even made John Lynch look like an ill-tempered rookie. The would-be hall-of-famer chucked Chargers running back LaDainian Tomlinson’s helmet down [...]

After a stammering loss in November of ‘01, then Colts head coach Jim Mora gave an epic speech, hammering himself and his reeling team. One intrepid reporter then asked Mora about his 4-6 team making the playoffs, to which the coach miserably exclaimed: “Playoffs? Don’t talk about — playoffs? You kidding me? Playoffs? I just hope we can win a game!”  
Mora is my hero for giving such a legendary quote to the masses.  I have a MP3 of it saved on my cell phone. If I’m ever in a bad mood I just play the clip and I can’t help but turn that [...]

This isn’t your average Bolt & Pony show.
The Chargers have clinched the division. The Broncos are out of playoff contention. Neither is looking past Sunday’s game.
San Diego is good for the 3rd or 4th seed in the playoffs. With Cleveland and Pittsburgh taking the AFC North chase down to the wire, it’s anyone’s guess as to where any of them will land.
The seeding uncertainty notwithstanding, once you’re locked in the playoffs with no aspirations of a first-round bye, the nagging uncertainty Chargers coach Norv Turner should be pondering is: how much caution to use in the last two games. Do [...]