Rivers could be Super stopper

SAN DIEGO — Right now the only thing about the San Diego Chargers that doesn’t scream “Super Bowl!” is the quarterback.

Not trying to linger on the negative, but when a team is tied for the best record in the NFL, has a commanding lead in its division, a player cutting and pasting his name all over the record book, a defense that’s getting Grinchier the closer Christmas gets, and even a conservative coach who’s acting more like Michael Moore than Rush Limbaugh, the natural question is what’s to keep it from winning it all?

With a record of 12-2, the Chargers are one step closer to home-field advantage throughout the playoffs, but even if they’re in familiar beds it might be difficult to sleep well before a postseason game knowing Philip Rivers is capable of uncorking a 12.4 passer rating at a crucial moment. Sunday night, all the good things in that previous paragraph were enough for the Chargers to beat the Kansas City Chiefs, 20-9, at Qualcomm Stadium even though Rivers completed only eight of 23 passes for 97 yards and had an interception-to-touchdown ratio of 2:0.

For a guy who has started every game for the team that’s emerged as the best in the league, Rivers certainly didn’t look like a winner Sunday. Not during the game, when he rushed passes and missed receivers. Not afterward, when he was the first off the field and back to the locker room, and when Coach Marty Schottenheimer draped both arms around him and offered words of consolation and encouragement.

It could be the Chargers are good enough to win no matter what Rivers does. They beat the Oakland Raiders in the season opener when he attempted 11 passes. And they just beat the Chiefs when he had the same number of completions as that Monday night, despite more than twice as many attempts.

“I’m glad I’m on this team,” Rivers said. “Let’s put it that way. You can be quarterback on another team and play this way and the outcome is probably not going to be the same.”

Rivers did more for the Chiefs’ offense than counterpart Trent Green did. His two interceptions allowed Kansas City to start drives in San Diego territory, leading to two of the Chiefs’ three field goals.

“I think I was maybe trying too hard,” Rivers said. “When you do that, you mean well, but it doesn’t work to your advantage.”

The good thing for Rivers is he’s still quite capable of taking the snap from the center, turning and handing the ball to LaDainian Tomlinson. That’s currently the best play in football.

Tomlinson averaged eight yards a carry Sunday, rushing 25 times for 199 yards and two touchdowns. That’s eight straight games with touchdowns -- plural -- making this just another day’s work for LT. Actually, if he’s going to score multiple touchdowns every game we should call him LTD.

Sunday he set NFL season marks for total points and rushing touchdowns.

“Every time you look up there, seems like they’re saying, ‘... breaks another record,” Rivers said.

Something’s wrong with us when Tomlinson’s going 1927 Babe Ruth, doing things the game’s never seen before, and we hear more about Terrell Owens spitting in DeAngelo Hall’s face. Maybe it’s because it’s so difficult to adequately describe just what Tomlinson is accomplishing. Even Schottenheimer, an English major, said he’s out of superlatives.

The best the Man himself could do: “I guess the only comparison is a basketball player in a zone,” Tomlinson said. “Not like Kobe scoring 85 points, but it’s going good.”

So is the Chargers’ defense. It sacked Chiefs quarterback Trent Green six times and held star running back Larry Johnson to 84 yards.

You know how the offensive gurus like to script their first 10 to 15 plays? Well, the Chargers’ first defensive series looked as if it were predetermined by defensive coordinator Wade Phillips. First play: a wall of defenders holds Johnson to a two-yard gain. Second play: Randall Godfrey sacks Green for a five-yard loss. Third play: Drayton Florence stops Tony Gonzalez nine yards shy of the first-down marker after a short pass.

But it looked as if the Chargers wouldn’t be able to capitalize on the ensuing possession when an errant pass from Rivers to Antonio Gates left them with fourth and six at their 43. We weren’t counting on Schottenheimer being so tricky. The Chiefs sure weren’t. The Chargers snapped the ball to up man Michael Turner, who ran 25 yards to the Kansas City 32.

“That wasn’t conservative, huh?” Chargers wide receiver Keenan McCardell said.

A couple of plays later, Tomlinson went off right tackle, juked a couple of defenders and was on his way to the house -- his house.

Schottenheimer said the fake punt decision was about taking advantage of an opportunity. From here, it looks like a guy finally trying to shed his reputation of tightening up when the games get bigger.

McCardell thinks this team’s firepower allows Schottenheimer to be looser.

“This is the 2006 Chargers, it’s not the Kansas City Chiefs when he was there.”

If anything, Schottenheimer got a little too slick. On a third and four at the Chiefs’ seven, Tomlinson lined up in shotgun formation and took the snap. But he slipped and was tackled for a loss, forcing the Chargers to settle for a field goal.

Schottenheimer’s willingness to gamble might have helped Rivers salvage something from this game. On a third down in the fourth quarter, instead of playing it safe for a run, Schottenheimer called a deep pass, and Rivers hooked up with Vincent Jackson for a 46-yard play that led to a field goal.

“We kind of struggled a little bit on offense as far as the passing game,” McCardell said. “Some nights you have ‘em like that. You’ve got to be able to bounce back, and when it’s crunch time, crucial like that, you make the play. And he made the play.”

But will he be able to make it in the playoffs?