Grinding It Out With the Chargers

This past weekend was a pretty solid sports weekend highlighted by the Chargers winning their season opener 14-3 and me drinking so much that I passed out sometime after the game ended as guests slowly filtered out of my house. I don’t know which Sunday performance was worse -- my drinking performance or Britney Spears’ performance at the MTV Music Awards. Rookie mistake not mixing in a glass of water here and there.

The lesson of course is that I’m an idiot.…

Here are some thoughts on the Charger game:

1. The Bears defense clearly limited the Chargers but if you think about it, the Chargers would have scored 24 points had Tommie Harris been called offside (which he definitely was) on the play at the Bears goal line where the Chargers turned it over, and had Nate Keading (who’s slowly entering “Idiot Kicker” status) not gotten a chip shot field goal attempt blocked.

2. The Charger defense looked very solid. Props to Shawn Phillips for smacking Rex Grossman in the first quarter, to rookie Eric Weddle for recording his first NFL sack, and to Marlon McCree for not getting the ball stripped from behind after his interception. Good all-around performance. Had Phil Rivers not thrown a stupid, stupid, interception the defense would have pitched a shutout.

3. Everyone looks at LT’s 25 rushing yards and says the Bears contained him but he also had 51 receiving yards (which makes it 76 total yards if my math is correct), ran for a touchdown and threw for a touchdown. It wasn’t a typical LT performance but a pretty good day by anyone else’s standards and a great day considering the competition and the fact that the Bears were loading up the box with up to 9 guys.

4. Antonio Gates: 9 receptions, 107 yards, 1 touchdown in what was the first of many great games for Gatesy this season.

5. Phil Rivers didn’t look that sharp. In addition to the aforementioned stupid, stupid interception he was a little scattered and didn’t handle the blitz well -- especially when they blitzed up the middle. Granted he was hurt by a few dropped passes, but Rivers needs to be a little sharper-- especially this weekend. Maybe he needs to go back to the clear visor or something.

6. The bottom line is that I was glad to see the Chargers win a game where they had to grind it out a bit. And as everyone was saying afterwards, it was a good thing that they remain composed after the Rivers’ interception, the blocked kick, and when the Harris call didn’t go their way. On a call like that a year ago, Schottenheimer probably gets a 15-yard penalty for going to midfield to argue, followed by the Chargers going into prevent defense, getting two pass interference penalties called on them, and giving up a touchdown pass that gets the Bears back into the game. This year, they collect themselves, force the Bears to punt, got the ball back and that was that.

Like someone on a six-hour drinking binge breaking things up with a glass of water here and there, the Chargers didn’t let things get out of control on Sunday. Maybe I can learn a thing or two from them this year…

Friday night was the only night all weekend where I caught a glimpse of the Padres. This past week they’ve lost series’ to the Diamondbacks and Rockies and are back in second place. Padre apologists will say they haven’t been doing so well offensively because Milton Bradley is hurt but I say it’s Kevin Towers’ fault that their offensive viability in the final month of the season heavily relies on an injury-prone player who’s never played over 120 games in a season.

In any matter the Pads play the Dodgers and Frisco this week. I’ll be playing Madden ’08...

I watched the UFC fight on Saturday and was pretty entertained. My homie Rampage “Chillaxin” Jackson beat Dan Henderson to unify the light heavyweight title although he didn’t knock Henderson out. The highlight didn’t occur until Sunday when my brother pointed out that the deaf guy in one of the under card matches had a speech impediment, which led to me ask how a deaf guy would even know whether or not he even had a speech impediment. UFC is good times.

(I know, I’m really going to enjoy those 500 degree cups of coffee every morning when I’m burning in hell)…

And finally, here are my thoughts on Week 1 of the NFL:

1. I watched most of the Patriot game and I’ll have to admit, they look pretty good. Of course, any team can look good when they steal their opponents’ signals. What a bunch of cheaters.

All I can say is: It’s on this Sunday!

2. My NFC Super Bowl pick didn’t do too hot last weekend as the Eagles lost to Green Bay. My sleeper team (the Bucs), and the teams I had winning the AFC South (the Jags) and NFC West (the Rams) also lost. I’m an idiot! But I guess you already knew that…

3. I watched most of the Bengals-Ravens game last night and I’ll say this, the Bengals defense looks like its improved tenfold since last year. And from watching the Steelers highlights, Pittsburgh’s offense looks greatly improved too. Looks like it may be a two horse race for the AFC North.

4. Vince Young keeps winning games.

5. There are few things more enjoyable than rocking out to the “San Diego Super Chargers” song. That song never fails to get me jacked up, which got me thinking, if I had to compose a list of “Songs that Invariably Get me Jacked Up” it would look like this:

- “San Diego Super Chargers” by unknown black man with a sweet, sweet voice
- “Gin and Juice” by Snoop Doggy Dogg
- “Fever Dog” by Stillwater
- “Traveling Riverside Blues” by Led Zeppelin
- “Roadhouse Blues” by The Doors
- “The Ultimate Warrior Theme Song” by Jim Johnson (Johnson actually discussed writing this song in the documentary “Self Destruction of the Ultimate Warrior”)

And you wonder why I went girlfriend-less in 2006…

I’m also posting on Wordpress now. Just another way to get the word out. Wordpress readers can read older blogs at http://www.lamlogs.blogspot.com/ and if you really want to go old school, go to www.xanga.com/phillam.

Alright, that’s it. Keep an eye out for the Week 2 NFL picks blog Thursday evening / Friday morning.