ProFootballCentral.com

By: PFC Chargers writer Robert Murdock

Naturally, every team’s fan hopes to see their team win the Super Bowl.  To win a Super Bowl, a team needs to have talent. The San Diego Chargers, who rank in most power-rankings in the top-five, and in some cases as high as first, have tons of talent. Seasoned football fans know however, that talent alone won’t get it done. In addition to talent, the team needs momentum. The team needs to be playing their best football as it heads into the playoffs. Over the years, many a fan has seen their team earn a seed in the playoffs, only to seemingly “put it on cruise-control” as if they’d already accomplished their goal, or had let complacency get the better of them.

Another potentially deciding factor is injuries. Avoiding key injuries is extremely important as evidenced by the Chargers’ performance in the most recent AFC Championship Game. Injuries robbed the Chargers of their All Pro RB LaDainian Tomlinson, and top receiving threat All Pro TE Antonio Gates. It also hobbled their QB Philip Rivers, resulting in their inability to score even a single touchdown in any of their several trips into the red-zone.

The final deciding factor I’d like to discuss, is quite frankly, luck. With so many things that can go wrong, seasoned fans know that to expect nothing less than a Super Bowl victory, would be foolish. Chargers fans appear to be no exception. By consensus opinion, Chargers fans in 2006 and 2007 have been fairly prophetic even though the Chargers have exceeded those expectations. In 2006 the majority of Chargers fans, according to conversations, various polls, and forums, stated that they expected the Chargers to win the AFC West. They did this, and exceeded the expectation by attaining a first round bye and home-field advantage. The expectation in 2007 was for the most part, that the Chargers do no worse than to win the division and reach the next tier by winning a game in the playoffs. They exceeded these expectations by winning two games ( Tennessee , Indianapolis ), earning themselves a spot in the AFC Championship Game. Now in 2008, Chargers fans once again expect their team to reach the next tier by posting a victory in the AFC Championship Game, and still be playing in Tampa, this coming February. Whether or not the Chargers will write a Super Bowl winning chapter into the history books, it seems, the fans will leave to the hands of the football gods.