Chargers are consistent in the playoffs

FROM PITTSBURGH — As the end of their season crunched underneath their feet, their faces draped in ski caps, their curses bathed in smoke, the San Diego Chargers were serenaded by the cruelest of songs.

From the Heinz Field loudspeakers it blared. From the lips of the black-swathed Pittsburgh Steelers fans it sang.

Into the Chargers’ heads it taunted.

“I’m A Believer.”

Yep, gotcha again, the Chargers once again making their fans giddy, only to leave them gasping.

For a third consecutive season Sunday, the Chargers made folks believe, then stole that belief with mistakes, misplays and the strangest of malaise.

For a third consecutive season, the Chargers advanced at least as far as the second round without going to the Super Bowl, this time losing to the Pittsburgh Steelers, 35-24, in a divisional playoff game that came down to a singular perception as cold as the Allegheny air.

“Pittsburgh laid it all on the line, all the time,” Chargers linebacker Stephen Cooper said. “We didn’t.”

Chargers safety Eric Weddle barked in agreement.

“We needed to man up,” he said.

The Chargers left the snowy bowl with the respect that comes from being the first 4-8 team to eventually make the playoffs, and first eight-win team to win a playoff game. They left with a quarterback who stood strong despite being knocked “cuckoo” and with their running back of the future.

But there was something missing.

It is the same thing that was missing when the New England Patriots stunned the 14-win Chargers two years ago in this round.

It was the same thing absent when the Chargers failed to get past the Patriots in the AFC championship game last year.

“At this time of year, you are either a team on the rise, or you are not,” Steelers Coach Mike Tomlin.

A rise in focus? A rise in toughness? Whatever it is, the Chargers were once again not that team.

“It doesn’t hit you yet that it comes to a brutal end,” said still-dazed quarterback Philip Rivers afterward.

But it was brutal indeed, the Chargers continually flirting with success only to eventually wed themselves to the organization’s decades-old burden of frustration.

Yes, the Chargers had the lead, stunning Pittsburgh on their first possession, a beautiful 41-yard touchdown loft from Rivers to Vincent Jackson.

But no, they gave that lead back by getting juked and hurdled on a 67-yard punt return by Santonio Holmes.

“I don’t think it was panic,” Cooper said. “It was more of a momentum shift.”

Yes, they took the lead again on a field goal.

But no, they gave it back again in the final minutes of the first half on a drive that featured Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger standing in the pocket for about three days before completing a 41-yard pass to Hines Ward that led to a touchdown.

“After that punt return, guys were more worried about trying to make plays than playing within the defense,” Cooper said.

Trailing only by that touchdown at halftime, the Chargers warmed up and took the field with the game still in doubt.

Then, once again, it was doubt that consumed them.

In a third quarter that decided the game, the Charger defense slowly, agonizingly, inexplicably rolled over, leaving the field only long enough for the offense and special teams to also embarrass themselves.

For the quarter, the defense allowed the Steelers’ mediocre offense to grind up 112 yards while the Chargers’ offense gained zero yards.

For the quarter, the Steelers’ offense remained on the field for 24 plays while the Chargers’ offense ran one play, a tipped pass for an interception.

Oh, the Chargers’ punt return team was also on the field for one play, with a Steelers punt bouncing off the helmet of Weddle, giving the ball back to Pittsburgh.

“It was crazy,” Rivers said.

So crazy, the Steelers held the ball for 14:43, while the Chargers had it for all of 17 seconds.

Seventeen seconds?

“Weird,” Rivers said.

Weird, and wilting, a Chargers defense missing tackles, stumbling over blockers, and giving up four third-down conversions of at least seven yards each.

“Every play, you fight back the urge to say you don’t have much life,” Chargers defensive end Luis Castillo said.

In the end, they gave in to that urge to give up another Steelers touchdown, but even then, flirting again, they pulled off a goal-line stand at the start of the fourth quarter.

Down by 11 points, what happens? Four plays, a punt, and then the surprisingly ineffective Weddle grabbed Nate Washington for a 44-yard pass interference penalty.

One play later, the Steelers led by 18, and that was that.

“Yeah, the pass interference sealed it,” Castillo said.

Some will point to the Steelers’ holding Darren Sproles to 15 yards rushing in place of inactive LaDainian Tomlinson -- this, after Sproles gained 105 yards rushing last week against Indianapolis.

But Sproles still caught 91 yards’ worth of passes, including a 62-yard catch and run for a touchdown, and totaled 274 yards in offense. He is still this team’s back of the future, even if it means ridding themselves of the injury-prone Tomlinson.

“We’re fighting in these games,” Rivers said. “We’re not outmatched.”

But something is missing, something that perhaps can be found in the faces of the men who ran it.

Afterward, Steelers Coach Mike Tomlin looked resolved, while Chargers Coach Norv Turner just looked lost.

Said Tomlin: “We have a mentally tough group in there, and they were able to display it today.” Said Turner: “The game is hard.”

For Chargers fans, perhaps not as hard as watching it.

--

[email protected]