Chargers: Looking Forward to the Second Quarter of the Season

There were some people who thought that the San Diego Chargers might be 1-5 heading into their Week 7 bye this season (ahem). As optimistic as I usually am, I had them at 2-2 at this point (I expected the Raiders to be okay) and 5-3 at the half-way point of the season. It might be time to revisit those predictions.

Week 5 - @ New Orleans Saints

What I said:

Don't buy the hype. Those players that have been "unsuspended" today will just be resuspended tomorrow. It's complicated, so you're going to have to believe me. Their coaching mixups over this year lead me to believe that this will be a bad team through at least the first half of the season, but I'm almost alone in thinking that. Whatever, these are my picks.

Result: Chargers Win, 3-2

Hey! What do you know? Their coaching mixups have led to this being a bad team (through at least the first half of the season)! Fantastic.

New Result: Chargers (still) Win and go 4-1.

Week 6 - Denver Broncos

What I said:

Hello, Peyton Manning. Allow me to reintroduce your old nemesis, the 3-4 defense. No, no … your running game won't help you.

Result: Chargers Win, 4-2

Peyton's MO this season seems to be one of two things, depending on how lucky you feel. He either can't handle fast defenses (Falcons, Texans) and pressure, or he's still knocking rust off. Maybe it's both. Either way, I'm starting to hate this game more each week.

New Result: Chargers Win (on the back of a nutso Monday Night crowd at Qualcomm) and go 5-1

Week 8 - @ Cleveland Browns

What I said:

Someone get Joe Haden, who happens to be really good, off this team. Everyone else is garbage.

Result: Chargers Win, 5-2

I look very right about this one, don't I. This has "trap game" written all over it, but I don't think the Chargers are the type of team to get trapped this year. Again, stupid optimism. It'd be scarier if the Browns could do anything on offense.

New Result: Chargers Win, 6-1 (and the countdown to the end of the Earth begins)

Week 9 - Kansas City Chiefs

What I said:

Things are a bit more even on the Chargers' home turf. Still, the string of good luck has to run out at some point.

Result: Chargers Lose, 5-3

That Chiefs team is awful, which is scary. At some point they're going to fire Romeo Crenell and Scott Pioli and the team will play great behind....I don't know, Tyler Thigpen or someone....and win a couple of meaningless games and get their crowd hyped for 2013. Right? Their pass-rush is too good and they have too many playmakers for that not to happen. Maybe they'll trade for Tebow (or maybe they should've). How terrifying would that be?

You saw how bad the Chargers beat up the Chiefs in Kansas City, now add in that this will be Vincent Brown's first game back! If Robert Meachem hasn't figured the offense out by then, expect quite a lot of playing time for the very hungry Mr. Brown.

New Result: I'm stuck in between picking the Chiefs to beat the Chargers (which seems hilariously dumb right now) or picking the Chargers to go 7-1 in the first half (which seems hilariously dumb all the time). Could this be it? Could this be the 2006-like team that Norv has been waiting for, with a cupcake schedule and good luck, to shut up the naysayers that always bring up "14 and 2"? It definitely looks that way so far.

Screw it. Chargers Win, they go 7-1 in the first half of the season, and promptly lose 7 of their last 8 (entirely possible, that schedule is satanically evil) to finish 8-8.

Still, the good times....they are rolling.