Sunday Bloody Sunday

Are you still spitting out blood? Still feel a little woozy? Is your jaw as sore as mine?

After a summer spent dreaming about a potentially euphoric fall -- the Padres making it to the World Series and the Chargers making a Super Bowl run, San Diego sports fans got woken up by a Chuck Liddell right hook combo to the chin this Sunday. In the morning we saw the Chargers, continuing to look disoriented on both offense and defense, lose to the Packers and drop to 1-2. About an hour later we saw Milton Bradley on first base jawing with umpire Mike Winters and Todd Helton with a smug smile on his face. The situation continued to escalate and a few pitches later the bizarre happened: Bradley exploded and started to charge Winters. And when Bud Black ran out to restrain him, Bradley fell awkwardly, hurt his knee, and had to be helped off the field. Bradley later said that Winters baited him by calling him “a fucking piece of shit” but in the end it didn’t matter. The damage had been done. The Padres eventually lost the game, got swept by the Rockies and pretty much ended any hopes we had of a third straight division title.

The next day, the carnage looked like this:

Milton Bradley: torn ACL, out for the year.

Mike Cameron: torn ligament in right thumb, out for the remainder of the regular season.

Padres (after a 4-9 drubbing Monday night): three games behind the Diamondbacks in the NL West; tied for the Wild Card lead with the Phillies.

Chargers: 1-2 tied for last in the AFC West.

Chargers Offense: ranked 27th in the NFL

Chargers Defense: ranked 22nd in the NFL

LaDanian Tomlinson: Averaging 2.3 yards per carry.

As a shaken and saddened Don Corleone asked after Sonny got shot: “How did it come to this?”

For the Padres, the answer is simple. They spent the summer avoiding their obvious weakness-- that huge LenDale White sized hole in the middle of their lineup, and put all their chips into one basket with a volatile player who couldn’t stay healthy. Hey, I was all for the Bradley trade saying at the time that he was immediately the second best hitter on the team. But maybe Kevin Towers should have hedged his bets a little. I mean, was anyone really surprised that Bradley blew up at the umpire or blew out his knee? Maybe we didn’t expect it to happen all within the span of 45 seconds but was anyone really surprised? Everyone’s heard a variation of the parable about the snake and the old man where the old man nurtures a sick snake back to health, the snake bites him, the old man asks why, and the snake says well you knew all along I was a snake. Well, with Milton Bradley the Padres knew he was volatile. And the Padres knew he was injury prone. It was just a matter of time before they got bitten.

For the Chargers the questions are more complex:

Did the Chargers come into the season too overconfident?

Did the players believe too much of their own hype?

Was last season a fluke?

Are they overrated?

Was this season lost in January when they should have fired Schottenheimer and promoted Wade Phillips?

Is Norv Turner Satan reincarnated?

I don’t know the answers to these questions but I do know that their offensive and defensive lines got pushed around for the second week in a row. I know that their defensive backs missed a ton of tackles. I know that they miss the hell out of Matt Whilhelm. I know that they hardly blitz anymore. I know that Clinton Hart should get benched for Eric Weddle. I know that Shawne Merriman should go see if Ken Caminiti has any Snickers bars stashed somewhere. And I know that their running game -- their bread and butter last year, is absolutely terrible.

And their offense doesn’t skip any downs. I heard Ron Jaworski say this about the Saints last night and I thought it also rung true for the Chargers. Its first down, second down, and third down with these guys every single drive this year whereas last year it was first down: 15 yard run, first down again: 8 yard run, second and two: 5 yard run, first down again: 15-yard pass… Put me on the list of people who thought the Chargers offense would improve under Norv Turner (and maybe it still will) but right now they are hapless. It’s one thing to get pushed around by the Patriots but the Packers? The Chargers faced a dozen defenses better than the Packers last season and ran them over no problem. And the biggest surprise of them all is that LT doesn’t remotely resemble LT that we’ve all come to know and love.

Is there an end to this madness?

Well the baseball regular season is over on Sunday so we’ll find out about the Padres soon enough. But even if they make the playoffs are they going to do anything with an outfield of Scott Hariston, Jason Lane, and Brian Giles? Chris Young is hurt, Maddux got rocked last time out and Peavy really hasn’t proved himself in the playoffs or any big game for that matter. The best case scenario for the Pads is that they go on a 2006 Cardinals-type run which isn’t that far fetched considering they play in a league where last year, the starting pitchers for game seven of its championship game were Jeff Supan and Oliver Perez. I mean, who’s the favorite in the National League right now? The Mets? Cubs? Phillies? Diamondbacks? None of those teams scare me-- even without Milton Bradley. So all the Pads have to do is get into the dance and we’ll see what’s what.

For the Chargers, who would have thought this weekend’s game against the Chiefs would be such a huge game for them. After that they’ll complete the AFC West gauntlet by facing the Broncos in Denver (another suddenly huge game) and the Raiders. If they can get through those games they’ll be 4-2 going into their bye with games against the Texans and Vikings afterwards so they can still come out of this thing looking pretty decent. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: The goal this season is the Super Bowl. Doesn’t matter what they do or how they get there.

So there you have it. You never want to take it on the chin like we did this weekend but it’s not over yet. One of the things about being a sports fan is that even when you take it on the chin, you have no choice but to get back up.