Last month, when the Colorado Rockies won 10 straight to temporarily move into the NL West and wild card chase, there was talk from everyone that the Rox were at it again... The Rockies were red-hot in September 2007 and went all the way to the World Series. They made it back to the postseason in 2009, after being all but left for dead early on.
(Of course, the Rockies ultimately fell short in 2010, losing 13 of their last 14 and finished third in the division.)
Thanks to the 2007 and 2009 runs, the Rockies were widely seen as a September team. In '07, they won 14 of their final 15 games in the regular season, including 11 in a row. After sweeping both the Phillies in the NLDS and the Diamondbacks in the NLCS, Colorado had an incredible 21-1 record in games played after September 15th. In 2009, it was a rebound from a 20-29 start and the Rockies won 10 of their first 11 games in September, and wound up with the Wild Card.
Those efforts definitely helped a lot of baseball followers believe Colorado to be a so-called 'September team.' What if Colorado could start out every year the way they play in those two Septembers? The Rockies could very well shatter the all-time record of 116 wins set by the 1906 Cubs and matched by the 2001 Mariners.
And the NFL equivalent of the Rockies, the San Diego Chargers, could very well join the 2007 New England Patriots as the only 16-0 team, if they started every year the way they played come December.
The Chargers lost to the hapless Oakland Raiders 35-27 on Sunday, snapping a 13-game winning streak against their long-time AFC West rivals. San Diego lost to Oakland for the first time since 2003, when Jerry Rice (?!!) was playing for the Raiders.
It's yet another "slow" start to the season for San Diego, which is now 2-3. The Chargers have alternated wins and losses so far this year. In the first five weeks, they have gone L-W-L-W-L. That pattern will probably continue the next couple weeks, when they face the lowly Rams (should be a W) and then the powerful Patriots (should be an L) in back-to-back games.
But what if the Chargers played every game like it's a December game?
Last season, they won their final 11 games of the regular season, and finished with a 13-3 record and the AFC West title. They were the AFC's No. 2 seed, but lost in their first playoff game to the No. 5 New York Jets. (The Indianapolis Colts, who started the year 14-0 before losing their final two regular season games, clinched the AFC's top seed and went on to play in the Super Bowl.)
In 2008, the Chargers started the year 4-8, but thanks to the Denver Broncos' historic collapse and their own 4-0 December, won the AFC West with a mediocre 8-8 record. They beat the Colts before losing to the Steelers in the AFC divisional round. Sure, they became the first NFL team to ever start a year 4-8 and still make the playoffs, and sure, they were burned by referee Ed Hochuli in Week 2, and sure, they lost five games in the last 24 seconds that year, but again... If the Chargers had played each game like they normally do in December, they wouldn't have been an 8-8 team.
2007: They won their final six games, after beginning 1-3 and 5-5. (In their first four games, they lost three in a row, 38-14, 31-24, and 30-16, to the Patriots, Packers, and.... the 4-12 Chiefs?!?!) Their 11-5 record gave them the AFC's No. 3 seed, but of course, they were no match for the 16-0 Patriots in the AFC Title Game. Sure, they'd knocked off the No. 2 seed Colts in the divisional round, but their slow start ensured they had to play in the wild card round and had no bye week for the last 13 weeks.
2006: They won their final 10 games in what turned out to be Marty Schottenheimer's final season as head coach. The Chargers were 14-2, with their only losses by three points to the Ravens and by three to the Chiefs. After getting a first-round bye in the playoffs, the Chargers lost in their first playoff game, 24-21 to the Patriots. The biggest irony of that loss came in the first quarter, when Schottenheimer decided to go for it on 4th-and-11 instead of trying for a 47-yard field goal. QB Philip Rivers lost a fumble while getting sacked, setting up a 51-yard field goal by the Pats' Stephen Gostkowski. Of course, the Chargers lost by three, and it was Nate Kaeding whose 54-yard FG attempt that fell short with three seconds left that handed San Diego the loss. Hey, they lost to the Patriots, but if they won those games against the Ravens and Chiefs early on... at least they would have been 16-0, right?
Schottenheimer would be fired less than a month after that playoff loss, on February 12, 2007.
Anyway, the point is, in those years, the Chargers, had they been as good all year long as their December records, the NFL might have seen a couple more 16-0 teams.
Just like the Rockies could have hosted a few more postseason and World Series contests.
No comments:
Post a Comment