BOLT ANALYSIS: SOME PERSPECTIVE

There is not much to say today. The fact that the Chargers game was blacked out was obviously a good thing. The game was so bad, even the Red Zone Channel did not waste much time on it. So, it must be said that this week’s ANALYSIS is not really coming from a first-hand account. But, you know all you need to know about our team. Normally, when a team is doing poorly or coming to the end of a bad season, you can evaluate young players...and look for the rays of hope out there. I tell ya, followers, it is not a hopeful place.....Chargerville. There is just next to nothing to get excited about. Losing 31-7 at home to a 4-8 team is bad enough. Doing it in such a way that the stadium is completely empty by the start of the 4^th quarter is pretty amazing. We knew the season was lost a number of weeks ago...and now I think we know that the locker room is lost too.  It is still just crazy to contemplate that we beat the Steelers last week.  Not sure how that happened with this offense. Anyway, a couple of factoids:

·         A total of 164 total yards of offense. Six more sacks given up.

·         31-0 at one point, and the Chargers had run two plays on the Carolina end of the field.

·         Ryan Mathews breaks his “other” clavicle and is done for the year. This, after 4 carries for 22 yards.  Ryan had 1 touchdown this year. 1! Former Chargers Mike Tolbert, Darren Sproles, Michael Turner, and, yes, even Jake Hester each have more than that. I am not being dramatic at all when I say that Ryan was supposed to replace or supplant all of those players (oh yeah, and LT!).

·         Philip Rivers fumbles the ball 4 more times, losing two of them. Mr. Rivers leads the League in turnovers for the second consecutive year...I think the number is 46 turnovers in the past two years.

·         “Star” performers such as Antonio Gates, Malcom Floyd, Meacham, invisible for most of the day. At least Gates caught a TD and has a Charger record, such as it is.

·         “Exciting” young players like Melvin Ingram, Larry English, etc. largely irrelevant.

We are just going to ride out these last few games now. With all the guys hurt, and all the guys out for the year, why risk anyone now?  Why not sit Rivers and let Charlie “Clipboard Jesus” Whitehurst have a shot? Why not sit Gates and let Ladarius Green take some lumps? I think they could suit up Natrone Means and he would do just as well as our 4^th string running back, or wherever we will be at that position. We play the Jets and the Raiders and the only good thing that can happen now are two losses that get us a better drafting position.

Like I said, there is nothing else to really talk about. I could berate the entire team and management for another few paragraphs, but there is not much point. I could pontificate about who the next coach might be, but there will be a better time for that. The end is here for the Bolts....losing record, no playoffs, and, really, no hope. The guys in that list above are our best guys. The Math don’t lie.

It bothers me that these posts cannot be more positive. Sports are supposed to provide a release from everyday life. Something fun and diverting...something that gets your mind off of some of the darker or harder parts of your life.  This is certainly the way the ANALYSIS views the sports world. So, despite the passion and outrage that the ANALYSIS sometimes (most of the time) exhibits while viewing sports, whenever things get a little too upsetting in the Sports world, it usually just takes a minute to put things back in perspective. That became oh so evident last Friday. I spent Friday morning with my daughter’s class and one other class. She is 6 years old and in first grade. I helped herd about 60 kids down to a holiday showing of the “Nutcracker”, about ½ mile down the street from her school.  The kids were excited; excited to go for a walk, excited to hold hands with their friends, excited that some of their parents were there, excited that they were going to see a play, excited about seeing Christmas lights in somebody’s yard, excited to see a cat in someone’s garage.  I got home from that experience to see the news from Connecticut. It has been difficult to watch and read the coverage ever since, as I’m sure it has been for all of you. I am not going to go political here...speaking of gun control, mental illness, or the state of our national media. I just keep thinking of the simple excitement of a first grader. And that puts everything in perspective.