MARC CHOQUETTE
Online Content Manager
Sunday brought the first huge NFL match up of the season, as Los Angeles’ new favorite team, the San Diego Chargers, traveled east to Foxboro, Mass., for a rematch of the 2006 divisional playoff against the New England Patriots.
Normally, this game would not create much of a stir in the Malibu hills, 3,000 miles from the action. But since my family has held season tickets in New England for a decade and recently decided to move to San Diego, of all places, the game brought on a whole new meaning (even if I was still rooting for the Pats).
But what adds fuel to the fire in our NFL-obsessed apartment is how the Chargers have managed to infiltrate the Southland fanbase. With Los Angeles continuing to fumble the ball with regards to landing an NFL franchise of their own, more and more SoCal football fans have gravitated toward Charger football, creating an even more hostile environment to root on my Patriots.
The prime case study for this new Southland surge of Charger enthusiasm is my own off-campus roommates. With two roommates from Southern California and another from New England, it would be an understatement to assume that interpersonal tensions have heightened during football season in recent years.
The first such instance of name-calling and trash-talking came two years ago, when October brought the first post-millennium Chargers vs. Pats match up.
My three-time Super Bowl champion confidence made me look silly after LaDanian Tomlinson ran for 134 yards against the supposed rock solid Patriot defense and broke our beloved 21-game home winning streak at “The Razor” (a.k.a. Gillette Stadium).
The next such headbutting occurred in the 2006 AFC divisional playoff, this time in San Diego. With the Chargers favored, the Pats mobbed into Mission Valley in their favorite underdog position and come out with a hard-earned 24-21 win against the Bolts in front of a stunned crowd and a bitter Tomlinson, who called the Patriots’ post-game celebration “classless.”
The following are notes from the past weekend’s match up:
Saturday — 10 p.m. (17 hours until game time)
A bombardment of negative commentary is coming my way from not only Charger fans, but from NFL fans of all stripes. After coach Bill Belichick and the Patriots were reprimanded for using a video camera to grab some defensive signals from the Jets sideline in the previous week’s game, their 38-14 rollover of a win was apparently not convincing enough to strike fear in the hearts of Charger fans.
The comments have gone along the lines of the following:
“Dude, LT is going to charge it so hard … You cheaters are going to crash and burn.”
“You cannot steal away the brilliance of Philip Rivers, brooo.”
“Your last three championships are invalid, your coach is a cheater, and Antonio Gates is going to burn your weak, signal-stealing defense for, if I had to venture a guess … 375 receiving yards.”
Sunday (Gameday) — 5 p.m.
Gametime nears and NFL commissioner Roger Goodell has just lambasted the Patriots and their spying tactics in a live interview with Bob Costas on national television before the game, creating a veritable hecklefest against the Pats and my allegiances. With Goodell taking a hard line by fining coach Belichick $500,000 and the Patriots franchise $250,000, the decision gave ample ammo to Charger fans to further chastise me and my supposed team full of overrated cheaters.
But with such weapons as Randy Moss and Tom Brady on my side, I was confident that the Pats were out to prove to the nation that they can pretty much destroy any team, whether they are cheating or not (although with all the NFL officials seen monitoring the activities of the teams that night, cheating was not really an option).
Sunday — 7 p.m.
The smack talking and hating against the ballers from Beantown has quickly turned into a whisper, as Brady & Co. have run up the score 21-0 before Charger fans could even come up with a reason for such poor play. With Tomlinson only running for 43 yards on 18 carries, he was forced to eat his own foot in the post-game discussions after saying this during the week leading up to the game:
“The Patriots live by the rule, ‘If you’re not cheating you’re not trying.’”
After much talk from Tomlinson, there was only one thing he could manage to say after Sunday’s thumping:
“I’m at a loss for words.”
Tally another W for the Pats.
See you in the playoffs.
09-20-2007