Chargers Need Sharp Performance Today to Get Their Coach Off the Hook
ATLANTA — The time has come for the Charger players to give Al Saunders a vote of confidence. Watch closely today in Atlanta.
If the Chargers (2-8) rally around their embattled coach to bury a 6-game losing streak with an upset victory over the Falcons (3-7), they will be telling owner Alex Spanos that Saunders can still lead them.
If they continue to drop passes, commit penalties and display an almost pathological aversion to making the right play at the right time, it will be a clear sign that they have decided Saunders won’t return in 1989.
Saunders got a reprieve of sorts from Spanos Thursday when Spanos said Saunders would run the Chargers on the field for the remaining 6 games of the 1988 season.
After that, Spanos promised nothing. He said he was deeply displeased with the losing streak and the inability of the offense to score. The Chargers have scored fewer points this year (119) than any other team in the league.
And they have shown little improvement the past 3 weeks. The history of professional sports has taught us that votes of confidence often precede firings. Worse for Saunders, the Chargers’ next 3 games after Atlanta are against the Rams, the 49ers and the Bengals, whose combined record is 21-9.
So if the Charger offense, ranked last in the AFC, takes another step backwards today against the Falcons (ranked last in the NFC in defense), all bets on Saunders’ future could be off.
More bad news for Saunders’ supporters:
--He has chosen today to give second-year player Mark Vlasic his first NFL start at quarterback. The history of the league’s first-time starters is not a glorious one.
--The Falcons are a better team than their record indicates.
The sum total of Vlasic’s regular-season NFL experience is 6 passes and 3 completions in the second half of a snowy, 24-0 loss at Denver last December.
“I hope it’s not too early for him,” Charger offensive coordinator Jerry Rhome said.
The Falcons have won 2 in a row for the first time since they opened the 1986 season 4-0. If they beat the Chargers, it will mark the first time since 1983 that they have won 2 in a row at home.
Their quarterback, Chris Miller, has finally recovered from a serious ankle sprain and has won each of his last 3 starts that he has also finished.
Their ground game, behind 5-foot 9-inch, 207-pound John Settle, a second-year free agent from Appalachian State, ranks fourth in the league.
Settle stepped in when Gerald Riggs injured his knee in Dallas Sept. 25 and quickly established himself as one of the league’s best all-around offensive players. He is the Falcons’ leading runner and receiver and needs only 271 yards rushing to become the first free-agent running back since Charger Paul Lowe in 1965 to gain 1,000 yards.
Riggs’ knee is mostly healed now. But Settle’s production has given Falcon Coach Marion Campbell the luxury of bringing Riggs back slowly. Riggs, the Falcons’ all-time leading rusher, will not start against the Chargers. If he plays at all, it will be on a limited basis.
Last week the Falcons intercepted 4 passes and recovered 3 fumbles in a 20-0 victory over Green Bay. It was the Falcons’ first shutout in 6 years.
The main reason for the takeaways was a shift from Campbell’s preferred style of conservative defense to a heavy dose of blitzes. The natural presumption is the Falcons will continue blitzing against the inexperienced Vlasic.
“We won’t live by the blitz,” Campbell said.
“We’ll be prepared if they do,” Saunders insisted.
Saunders can look at Miller and see the quarterback he’d like Vlasic to be in another 10 games. He can look at the Falcons and see the team that he’d like the Chargers to be this week--a team that figured out a way to right a tailspin.
“They’re a team much like we are in terms of being close each week,” Saunders said.
“I’d rather be winning and teaching instead of trying to learn from something else,” Campbell said.
The teams have combined for 15 losses in 20 games. But each has been beaten badly only once. The Chargers lost, 34-3, at Denver in Week 2; the Falcons lost, 33-0, at home to the Rams in Week 6.
The key to Atlanta’s 2-game winning streak has been takeaways. They have 13 during that short span. The Chargers’ 15 takeaways in 10 games ranks them last in their conference.
Saunders continues to search for a way to coax his otherwise reliable defense to take the ball away from opposing offenses. But it’s hard to “coach” turnovers.
It’s also hard to coach adrenaline-fueled enthusiasm on the road when your opponent’s stadium is half empty. The Falcons drew 29,952 fans against Green Bay last Sunday. Capacity at Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium is 59,643.
“That’s the one great thing about the NFL,” Saunders said. “For the most part, everywhere you go on the road, the environment is exciting--the people, the emotions--all those things create an atmosphere, especially to the competitors. It raises their level a bit. Atlanta certainly won’t be that way.”
Charger Notes
The sad saga of Charger running back Barry Redden continues. Redden spent the first 8 weeks on injured reserve with a broken bone in his hand. In his first game back, he dislocated a finger on the first play. “He’s just never been healthy enough to do anything this year,” Coach Al Saunders said. . . . The Chargers are the only NFL team that hasn’t played the Falcons in Atlanta since the team entered the NFL in 1966. . . . Falcon punter Rick Donnelly deposited 4 of his 5 punts inside the opponent’s 20 last week against Green Bay. Charger punter Ralf Mojsiejenko, nursing a sore calf, is still second in NFL punting with a 45.3-yard average. Harry Newsome of Pittsburgh leads at 46. . . . The Falcons have lost 6 in a row and 15 of their last 16 against AFC teams. . . . Former Auburn linebacker Aundray Bruce, the first player selected in last spring’s draft, has 4 sacks. Marcus Cotton, a second-round Falcon rookie linebacker from USC, has 5.
