Behind Makeshift Line, Chargers Hope They Will Come to Pass

SAN DIEGO â€”  The Chargers have passed for fewer yards than any team in the NFL. This is what the numbers crunchers call a “negative stat.”

Charger Coach Al Saunders is positive this won’t matter when his team plays the Chiefs today at Arrowhead Stadium in Kansas City. He is always positive. That is his nature. If Saunders had been an advance scout at Little Big Horn, he probably would have told Custer it didn’t matter that the Indians were on top of the hill and his soldiers were at the bottom of the valley.

That doesn’t mean Saunders isn’t concerned. “We don’t like the results we’ve had so far,” he says of the passing game.

Neither does Charger quarterback Babe Laufenberg, whose first three professional starts were against the Raiders on the road and AFC powers Denver and Seattle. The offense he has been trying to lead has managed just two touchdowns in three games. His quarterback rating of 50.1 is the lowest among starters in the league.

And now comes the word that left tackle John Clay won’t play for at least four weeks. He has a bad neck. So does Gary Kowalski, the left tackle Clay replaced last Sunday in the Chargers’ 17-6 upset victory over Seattle. Both are on injured reserve.

“Each week it’s almost like plugging a new hole,” Charger offensive coordinator Jerry Rhome said.

Which means Laufenberg’s most important blocker--left tackle--against the Chiefs will be Ken Dallafior, who was cut by the Chargers this past summer. Dallafior was watching the NFL on television last Sunday in Sterling Heights, Mich. When the Chargers called him Monday night, he was watching the NFL on television again.

Today, he will be live. “After being home,” Dallafior says, “I couldn’t think of a better scenario. You work with what you’re presented with. You do everything to prepare in a short time and let it fly.”

Dallafior was a college wrestler at Minnesota and claims he has stayed in excellent shape since the Chargers released him. His secret:

“For my contact drills I used my wife and my 3-year-old daughter . . . no, just kidding. My daughter’s too quick and my wife’s too mean . . . no, just kidding.”

That nervous laughter you hear is Laufenberg’s. Dallafior will attempt to protect Laufenberg’s blind side from Mike Bell, Kansas City’s right defensive end. Bell has one of four Kansas City sacks. The Chiefs are tied with the Chargers in that category. No AFC team has fewer.

Kansas City ranks sixth in the league in pass defense and 15th against the rush. Look for the Chargers to run whenever possible; their 4.9 yards per carry average is the highest in the conference. Gary Anderson rushed for a career-high 120 yards against Seattle, including a 25-yard touchdown run in the fourth period that was the first rushing touchdown by a Charger back in 28 quarters.

If the Chargers pull an upset for the second consecutive week, they might find themselves sucking back the rarefied air of first place. After three games, Seattle is 2-1. The rest of the AFC West is 1-2. But the Seahawks must play NFC power San Francisco today without starting quarterback David Krieg, knocked from the game with a separated shoulder by the Chargers last week.

Saunders says Kansas City’s peripatetic quarterback, Steve DeBerg, is similar to Krieg in style. DeBerg threw for 259 yards and 2 touchdowns last week in the Chiefs’ 20-13 victory over Denver at Arrowhead Stadium. Since 1983, Kansas City is 15-6 at home against AFC West opponents.

“He’s a lot like Krieg,” Saunders says. “He’s a high-percentage passer (56.7% lifetime) and he has a big, physical offensive line whose best quality is their pass protection.”

The Kansas City running game was supposed to revolve around big, fast Christian Okoye. But Okoye is on the injured reserve list with a bad thumb and won’t be available until next Sunday. Paul Palmer, who returned a kickoff 95 yards with 3:19 remaining to beat the Chargers, 20-13, in the season opener last year, has picked up the slack. Palmer ranks second in the conference in total yards from scrimmage (345) behind Indianapolis’ Eric Dickerson.

Despite the continued absence of outside linebackers Billy Ray Smith (calf injury) and Chip Banks (contract holdout), defense is the strength of the Chargers for now. Cornerback Gill Byrd and linebacker Keith Browner each intercepted two passes against Seattle. And even though he doesn’t have a sack yet, defensive lineman Joe Phillips is forcing offensive coordinators to pay attention to him.

The entire defense got a lift Thursday when defensive end Leslie O’Neal practiced with pads in live drills for the second time in less than a week. O’Neal suffered a serious injury to his left knee late in the 1986 season, his rookie year.

He was the Chargers’ leading sacker and tackler at the time. Veterans were coming in to watch his technique on film. But the rehabilitation has been a long, slow process. There was talk he might never play again. Now it appears the Chargers might activate him as early as the middle of next month--in time for the Dolphin game at Miami Oct. 16.

“Personally, I wouldn’t say that is out of the question,” Charger defensive line coach Gunther Cunningham said. “But this is a time we have to be really patient.”

Nobody has been more patient and cautious than O’Neal. But Cunningham says even O’Neal was so impressed by one of the moves he flashed in his first workout that O’Neal turned to the other players in the film room later and said, “ That’s vintage Leslie O’Neal.”

Cunningham says the Chargers ran 17 plays on which O’Neal’s job was to shed an offensive lineman and get to the quarterback. “They only blocked him once. And that one time he was upset (that) an offensive lineman was able to lay his hands on him. Leslie hasn’t lost any of his ability. But the leg strength isn’t quite there yet, according to the doctors.”