Ben is going to explain why the Chargers suck.

I will start out by saying that I am a die-hard Charger fan and have been so since I was 8 years old and watching John Friesz kick ass (yeah right!)

This year I was convinced the Chargers had everything they needed to win a Super Bowl.
This included:

• A healthy LT that just got a contract extension, along side Sproles
  
• A healthy Merriman
• A healthy Gates
• A healthy Jamal Williams (more on this later)
  
• Ron Rivera had his first full offseason with the team, after a great showing as defensive coordinator in the second half of 2008
• Phillip had another offseason to gel with his receivers
• I bought season tickets, so we had to win

We suck.  We are 2-3 and looking up at the 6-0 Denver Broncos.  We all assumed that the Broncos were self destructing when Culter was sent to Chicago for the lackluster Kyle Orton.  We all assumed that the Chargers would manhandle the AFC West (SWEEP!) and that we would be comfortably in the playoffs.  It looks like we were wrong.

As I sat there in Plaza 22 and the fat mexican dude with the Merriman faux mohawk hair cut yelled his brains out to a smug Bronco fan it hit me:

We will never see a Charger Super Bowl victory, at least not in San Diego.

Here is why:

The Spanos family has handed the keys to their kingdom to an arrogant, supposed "genius" in A.J. Smith.  Smith has single handedly crippled our team by leveraging our future on the knees, shoulders, elbows and tailbones of two men:  Jamal Williams and Nick Hardwick

Hear me out here...  If either of these guys were to miss a huge part of the season the Chargers will never compete where it matters most, in the trenches.  Our defense is now inept due to the fact that the 300lb mass of humanity is no longer there to gobble up two offensive linemen.  It shows that the linebackers that we once thought was the best core in the NFL besides Pittsburgh was nothing but a side effect to the glorious play of the big man.

Cooper cannot get into the backfield, and he is now asked to cover the Tight End for way too long.  These are both side effects to being destroyed by the offensive lines of the opposing team.  Do you ever see Merriman or Phillips in the back field these days?  Nope.  This is because the opposing team can double team the outside rusher because the guys that have their hands in the dirt are getting beat in one-on-one situations.

Actually, if you REALLY watch you can see that the Shawns (Shauns?) are losing one-on-one battles against Tight Ends and Full Backs!

My point is this, why weren't we ready with a back up to Jamal? Why do we have 6 wide receivers and only 1 formidable d-lineman? Why is Craig "BustAss" Davis still here?  Why don't we have a stud in training?  Do you really consider Vaughn Martin or O.G. a replacement for a perennial Pro-Bowler?   There were talented huge and angry men that would have loved to learn the position from big Jamal available in the first round.

Our GM has failed to draft/sign/gather a complete team, with enough depth to cover the most valuable of positions in case of injury.

Knowing that Jamal is in the twilight of his NFL career and yet still drafting a OLB (where we have no less than 4!) in the first round of the draft is down right insane.

This formula works when you apply it to our center, Nick Hardwick.  Himself an unsung star player, perhaps at the most important position on offense.  His block allows a) Phillip to stay alive and b) a little push for LT or Sproles to have that much more room to run through.

The greatest example of the ineptitude of this great GM is this, an undrafted SDSU player and JEREMY FUCKING CLARY let Linebackers and Defensive Linemen into the backfield like bouncers at Dave & Busters let 15 year olds in with their 21 year old "uncles."