Upon Further Review …

The Chargers are making us miss the Padres

During the baseball season, I had a lot of Padres fans bemoaning the fact the team "wasn't exciting to watch."  According to those people, wins aren't enjoyable unless a bunch of runs are scored. I used to use this argument to fight back :

Would you rather have the 2000 Houston Astros, the team that set the National League record for most runs in a single season but only won 72 times and finished 26 games out of first place?

But now I have a new argument :

Would you rather have the 2010 San Diego Chargers, the team that has the NFL's No. -ranked offense and No 1-ranked defense but also has the second-worst record in the AFC?

Pick your poison, folks, although I don't know how you can say -- with a straight face -- that you'd rather watch the Chargers. Sure, they pile up the points with unbelievable, exciting skill position players and get after the other team's quarterback with a pass rush that already has 25 sacks (tied for most in the NFL). But they make infuriatingly, astoundingly, amazingly stupid mistakes that constantly cost them games.

The Padres, on the other hand, played the majority of their season with only one consistent offensive threat and a bunch of guys who didn't put up great numbers -- but found ways to play great baseball. Their pitching staff struck out more hitters than anyone but the National League champion Giants. They played a boatload of low-scoring games but found a way to win a lot more than they lost because they rarely made costly mistakes (the Padres tied the Yankees and Reds for MLB's best fielding percentage).

After all the disappointment the "exciting" Chargers have provided, maybe next year we can try and enjoy the "boring" Padres. At the end of the day, I'll gladly take a clean win over a sloppy loss.

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