What's that funny smell?

No last second heartbreak, no blown calls at the end of the game… the Chargers accomplished their 17-10 loss to Miami completely unassisted as they appeared wholly unprepared, uninspired and basically stunk up the joint down in South Florida today.

Recall earlier in the week when Charger defenders dismissed the Dophin’s “wildcat” package (where running back Ronnie Brown (pictured) takes the snap from the shot-gun in a single-wing set and which generated 4 scores for them in their win against the Pats a couple weeks back) as a “gimmick”. The Charger defense which cannot defend against the pass and has trouble stopping the run has now bagged the trifecta in not being able to contain a “gimmick”, either as Ronnie Brown, many times from this formation, ran for 125 yards and a TD.

The announcers rightly noted that this formation allowed the ‘Fins to have their two best running backs, Brown and Ricky Williams, on the field at the same time. A novel concept, that, to which our head would probably explode if the Chargers ever demonstrated the creativity to maximize pressure on the defense by having LT and Darren Sproles on the field at the same time.

When Miami was not running its “gimmick”, the Charger D made Chad Pennington the model of efficiency as he was 22-29 for 228 yards. And again, the Charger pass rush did not as much dare muss Pennington’s golden locks.

But because the Chargers believe so much in the concept of “team”, the offense decided to lay down as well…. the vaunted offensive line did not generate any push up front which resulted in just 35 rushing yards on 12 carries for LT and Philip Rivers who had looked so good in the Green Bay game just a couple of weeks ago appeared skittish resulting in many errant passes as he completed just 13 of 28 for 158 yards.

There are no more excuses. Everybody’s back from injuries and suspensions which makes this loss that much worse. Unfortunately, because of this fact, there does not seem to be any quick fixes on the horizon.