Ok, so my last attempt at this didn't work out quite the way I had hoped. But that's ok, you guys are patient right? RIGHT?!?

Anyway, what I've decided to do is reboot the series and take a slightly different path. I'll still be going through the best and worst of various games of different periods as described last week, but rather than me just declaring one game or another the winner, I'll ay out the candidates, and then you readers will get to vote! This way, we'll have real live clashes of will for what the best and worst moments of recent Chargers history have been.

I'm going to go to a slightly different place this week, and wait a bit to re-do last week's look at bad pass defense. This time, we'll go the opposite direction and look at the best rushing offense performances by the Chargers. I'm going to divide this one into three different periods: LT as the featured back under Marty, LT as the featured back under Norv, and Mathews as the featured back under Norv. Don't like my divisions? Too bad, it's my series. We'll kick it off with the most recent period, Mathews as the featured back under Norv.

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I love going through old game records and re-living the past. Maybe that's why I wrote this column all through the regular season. As part of that, I like comparing. When was the best of this? When was the worst of that? So along that vein, I came up with an idea: I'm going to go through the stretch of recent Charger history (call it the AJ era, 2003-2011) and find out things like, "What was the worst pass defense performance in a game?" and "What was the best run offense performance in a game?"

And then I came up with a way to improve it even more. What if I found out the best/worst performances during different important individuals' tenure (for example, quarterback, head coach, or defensive coordinator), and pit them against each other cage match style to find out who is responsible for the best and worst moments of recent Charger history?

That's what I'm going to be doing this offseason. Maybe I'll even throw in some polls to find out if fans' subjective memories match up with the objective reality (for the objective measure, we'll be using Football Outsiders' DVOA). I'll go week by week and look at the different games before putting them in the bracket. Then I'll match them up and see where it leads us. Sounds like fun!

This week, I'm going to start by asking this question: What game featured the worst pass defense by the Chargers? We'll begin by looking at the short tenure of our most recently departed defensive coordinator, Greg Manusky. There are three candidates, and the winner will be revealed at the jump. Quick, without looking, which game do you think it was?

All VOA, DVOA, YAR and DYAR statistical values are developed, calculated and reported by Football Outsiders. Their explanation can be found here.

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So it looks like I'm the only person capable of starting the first Wild Card Open Thread. Woo hoo! Should be fun for Houston fans, as they get to watch the first playoff game in franchise history. If there's anyone in the AFC playoffs I'll root for, it's probably them as they're the least offensive of the bunch. Plus my wife's cousin is a Texans fan, and this one means a lot to him.

Then there's the evening game which everyone expects to have a 117-114 final score, which probably means it will be 6-3 with 25 punts and 11 turnovers. I don't really care for either of those teams or their players, so I don't care who wins. I know some of our users feel differently (coughwonkocough) and that's cool. It will probably be fun to watch. Have fun everyone!

This week sees our final 2011 edition of Flashback, ironically flashing back just a few weeks. We'll look at the last time the Chargers played, and lost to, the Oakland Raiders. It was in the middle of that six-game skid, and the third game San Diego would play (and lose) in the space of 11 days. Thanks, NFL schedule-makers. You're awesome.

This game brought newly-minted Raider quarterback Carson Palmer back to San Diego, where the last time he had played was in 2009 as a member of the Cincinnati Bengals, in that game Nate Kaeding won with a last-second long field goal. Ah, memories. Palmer usually pulled out his best performances against San Diego, and this week was no different.

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Once again, dear friends, we step into our WABAC machine and look back to the last time the Chargers faced their upcoming opponent. Today, we're setting the dials to go all the way back to the 2007 season, when the Detroit Lions traveled to San Diego to take on the Chargers.

There wasn't a lot of hype to build up to this one, because it wasn't anticipated to be a terribly exciting game. The Chargers were on their way up, having already clinched the AFC West by virtue of Denver's loss the previous Thursday and were riding a three-game win streak. Detroit had begun the year 6-2 and turned some heads, but was by this time on a 6-game skid at 6-8.

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Another week, another trip through the looking glass into the past. This time, we'll examine the last (and so far only) time the Chargers have matched up with the Harbaugh-Flacco lead Baltimore Ravens. The game itself was incredibly exciting and fun to watch, though the end result was ultimately disappointing and extremely frustrating for San Diego fans.

This game was the San Diego home opener, and the Chargers were coming off a nail-biter win over the Oakland Raiders which left them somewhat injury riddled, losing center Nick Hardwick for what would be nearly the entire year, and highly-regarded rookie right guard Louis Vasquez. That left backups Scott Mruczkowski and Brandon Dombrowski, each with minimal playing experience, starting in the middle of the line against a ferocious Baltimore defense. The Ravens were looking to build on a season where they made it all the way to the AFC Championship game with a rookie head coach and quarterback.

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After a brief moment last week, when we were able to look back on a victory, now we head back to the doldrums of defeat. I'm talking about the last time the San Diego Chargers played the Buffalo Bills. In 2008, the Chargers were coming off a shellacking of the (Brady-less) New England Patriots on Sunday Night Football, were back at .500, and hoped to head east to build a winning record. The Bills had jumped out to an early lead in the AFC East, sitting at 4-1 and had everyone talking about how they might actually be good again.

This was a weird game. The biggest reason this was a weird game was because hardly anyone saw it. A few minutes into the first quarter, there was a massive power-outage at Ralph Wilson Stadium, and the power remained out until part of the way through the second half. Time had to be kept on the field by the officials, meaning no play clocks or game clocks. This resulted in delay of game penalties for both sides.

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Let's flash back to a better time. A simpler time, when injuries weren't prevalent and the Chargers actually had a good team. I'm talking, of course, about Week 2 of the 2010 season, when the Chargers opened up Qualcomm stadium against the Jacksonville Jaguars. It was, suffice it to say, an odd game.

Oh, it started innocently enough, with the Chargers taking the opening kickoff and going down the field 74 yards for a touchdown. Things looked even better on the ensuing Jacksonville possession, when Antoine Cason stepped in front of a David Garrard pass. But then the turnovers started. From this point on, every single drive until late in the 4th quarter ended on either a score or a turnover.

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We've reached that point. The point where we're flashing back to the last San Diego Charger win. Kind of hurts just to say it, right? The last time we Charger fans tasted victory was over 6 weeks ago. At least we get to say it was over the hated Denver Broncos and their God-Emperor Tim Tebow.

The Chargers were lucky enough to start the game off facing the now-Kansas-City-Chief Kyle Orton, who was pretty terrible this year. San Diego built a nice 23-10 halftime lead in this one, on the strength of three Nick Novak field goals, a Philip Rivers TD run, and a deep ball to Malcom Floyd as time was running out in the second quarter. The Broncos, for their part, put points on the board from a field goal and pick six.

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At last! A flashback to a win! This one, like our other NFC North reviews, goes back to the stories 2007 season. Here, we're going to look at Norv's very first game as the Chargers' head coach, the season (and home) opener against the Chicago Bears.

Both the Bears and Chargers were coming off somewhat disappointing seasons--San Diego because they had compiled the NFL's best record in 2006 and then promptly blew their playoff opener, and Chicago because they had somehow made it to the Super Bowl with Rex Grossman starting at quarterback, and then blew it to the Indianapolis Colts, giving Peyton Manning his only Super Bowl Ring.

The Chargers were lucky enough to get to play the Bears before they benched Grossman in favor of Kyle Orton, and boy did he deliver. Grossman completed just 12 of 23 passing attempts for 145 yards, no touchdowns, and one interception, while taking three sacks and fumbling once. On the other side, things were a little better offensively (though not by much) for the Chargers. Rivers was almost identical to Grossman, except with a few more yards and a higher completion %: he completed 22 of 31 passes for 190 yards, no TDs, and one INT, took three sacks and fumbled once.

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This is another rough one, folks. As we all know, it's (a short) Raider week, and that means re-visiting last year's series with Oakland. As I'm sure we all remember, the Chargers not only lost a game to Oakland for the first time since 2003, but were swept in the season series for the first time since 2001. Like always, we'll look at the last match-up with the Chargers' upcoming opponent, which means we have to look at last year's game in Qualcomm when the Chargers were pretty much handled by the Raiders on their own field.

San Diego came into this game on a roll. After another horrific start, the Chargers had won four straight, and were coming off a blowout on Sunday Night Football over the Indianapolis Colts, where they almost completely shut down Peyton Manning and company. Most Charger fans (and Raider fans for that matter) expected this game to have similar results. Alas, it was not to be. I'll repeat a bit from a flashback from a couple weeks ago: Of course the Chargers would suffer a sack and be forced to punt on their first possession. Of course the Chargers defense would force a punt on the ensuing Oakland possession. Of course Darren Sproles would muff the punt and give the Raiders the ball on the San Diego 18 yard line, and of course Oakland would convert an ensuing 4th down attempt for a touchdown.

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This is another one of those flashbacks where we have to go back four years to find the last time the Chargers met their upcoming opponent. That's to expected, of course, with an NFC team. Here, we go back to the 2007 season to look at the time the Chargers traveled to Wisconsin to face the Green Bay Packers. This was an interesting game, in that the Chargers were coming off a pretty embarrassing loss to the Patriots on the road, while the Packers were off to a good start for the first time in several years.

This matchup would prove to be all about the quarterbacks. Brett Favre was in his last season with Green Bay (though we all didn't know it at the time), while Philip Rivers was only in his second year as the starting quarterback and was still making a name for himself. Both QBs were extremely accurate and efficient--Rivers completed his first fourteen passing attempts, and 15 of his first 16 including two touchdowns.

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Wow, that was fast. I feel like we just played the Chiefs. Oh, wait, that's because we did just play them a month ago, in San Diego. I was at that game, so my memory/viewpoint may be a bit skewed as a result. I remember being very high up, being hot, and in general not as entertained as I hoped I would be.

That's probably because the Chiefs came into this contest as a terrible team, having been outscored 89-10 over their first two games, and I expected a blowout. This was back when I still thought the Chargers were a good team, and wasn't too upset about their losing on the road in Week 2 to one of if not the best team in football. I was hoping, nay, expecting a blowout. A laugher. A game similar to Week 14 of 2011, when San Diego won 31-0. Boy was I disappointed.

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This one wasn't really a flashback I was relishing writing, but unfortunately it had to be done. For whatever reason, I seem to have blocked most of the specific details from the Chargers' last playoff loss from my memory, so I'll have to go more on what I read than what I remember (that consists mostly of dejected sighs and curses). Suffice it to say, here we go.

As far as playoff collapses go, this one wasn't entirely unpredictable. In fact, most of the people who looked at the way the Chargers and Jets were constructed knew that this was a really bad matchup for San Diego. The Chargers came into this game with a historically great passing offense that was paired with an atrocity of a rushing offense and a defense that was average on a good day. The Jets, on the other hand, had an atrocity of an offense on the whole, a terrible rookie QB, a historically great passing defense, and a mediocre at best rushing defense. It was a perfect case of strength matching with strength.

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Ok, I'll admit it. I didn't watch this game. Not live, at least. The last game of the 2010 season, unfortunately, mattered only for draft positioning for the San Diego Chargers. On one hand, I wanted a better pick, but on the other my psyche viciously rebelled at the thought of pulling for a Broncos win. I solved the problem by not watching the game live, reading about the result afterward, then catching the game on my DVR.

This game was notable because it was the first time since 2005 that the Chargers were playing out the string. It was also Tim Tebow's first career NFL start. The Chargers fell behind early, as usual, when the Broncos intercepted Philip Rivers, and Tebow lead the Broncos on a drive capped by a pass to Brandon Lloyd.

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This week on Flashback, we'll hop into the Wayback Machine and look at the last time the Chargers met the Miami Dolphins. Turns out it wasn't that long ago, in fact. The erstwhile Florida squad traveled to San Diego for a Week 3 contest in 2009. San Diego was 1-1, coming off contests against the Oakland Raiders and Baltimore Ravens that left the squad riddled with injuries, and saw Brandyn Dombrowski starting at guard, Scott Mruczkowski starting at center, LaDainian Tomlinson on the bench, and nose tackle Jamal Williams on injured reserve. Miami, on the other hand, was winless, having dropped contests against the Falcons and Colts to start the season.

The Dolphins started noted Charger-killed Chad Pennington at quarterback. Derided for his lack of arm strength, Pennington nevertheless possessed laser-like accuracy and excellent decision-making skills, and this game was no different. After a Charger punt to open the game, Pennington dinked and dunked the Dolphins down the field on a 16-play drive that got them to first and goal on the San Diego 1-yard line. Fortunately, the Chargers had the Gods of Fumble Luck on their side for once. Ronnie Brown fumbled on his way across the goal line, the ball popping out and rolling all the way out of the back of the end zone for a touchback. Threat averted!

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This week, Flashback features the first POSITIVE retrospective on the last time the Chargers faced their upcoming opponent. The last time the Chargers faced the Kansas City Chiefs was Week 14 of the 2010 season. The Chargers were coming off an embarrassing game where they were dominated at home by the Oakland Raiders at the tune of 28-13, and lost control of their own destiny in the AFC West. The Chiefs were coming off a win at home against the Broncos, where both sides struggled to score, and Kansas City scraped by Denver 10-6. The biggest news for the Chiefs was the fact that quarterback Matt Cassel had come down with appendicitis after the game, and the resulting surgery forced him from the starting lineup.

The Chargers knew that to have any shot at winning the division, they had to take care of business at home against the Chiefs. And take care of business they did. Kansas City backup Brodie Croyle had no shot to do anything positive whatsoever in this game. About the only thing he accomplished was to avoid throwing an interception. He finished the day completing 7 of 17 passes for 40 yards (still better than Donovan McNabb!) and was sacked four times. Jamaal Charles managed 40 yards on 10 carries, which lead to so-so 4.0 yard per carry average, but the Chiefs had the ball so little (19 minutes and 50 seconds, compared to over 40 minutes for the Chargers) that he didn't have much in the way of opportunities.

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Like most of you, I was frustrated and disappointed not only with the fact that the Chargers lost to the Patriots this past weekend, but with the manner in which they lost. Poor coaching, poor execution, and inexplicable mental errors lead to losing a game that they might have won. At the same time, I think it's important to try and maintain perspective and not attach too much importance to one loss. Some of the overreaction to one game in Week 2 (!) of a 16-game season borders on the manic.

The obvious: the Patriots are probably the best team in the NFL right now. They certainly were last year, and things don't appear to have changed. The Chargers had to go on the road, in Week 2, to play in the Patriots' home opener on a day in which they honored the memory of Myra Kraft. All these factors pointed to a game that would be near impossible for San Diego to win. And they didn't win. But you know what? It wasn't as terrible as it could have been. Despite all those factors going against them, the Chargers had their chances late and didn't get blown out. They lost by two touchdowns--a solid defeat to be sure, but not a blowout. And the things that lead to the loss--poor gameplanning and mental errors, are eminently fixable. Sometimes they get fixed (like in 2007 and 2009), and sometimes they don't (like in 2010), but it's far easier to deal with those things than with an overall lack of talent, which these Chargers certainly don't have. After all, we could be the Chiefs.

Let's look at some other teams who have suffered losses as bad or worse than the one the Chargers just endured:

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I, for one, am glad that the Chargers managed not to choke away the game last weekend and came away 1-0. It means that the Chargers aren't staring 0-2 in the face heading across the country to play one of the best teams in football. That, of course, would be the New England Patriots. The Chargers' recent history against this team has not been good--since 2006, the Chargers are 1-4 against them, their only win coming in 2008 when Matt Cassel (you know, this guy) started at quarterback for them.

Last year, the two teams met in Week 7 in San Diego, and the result was one of the most frustrating game's I've yet witnessed. The Chargers were a disappointing 2-4, having lost two in a row, the last at St. Louis in a nightmare game that saw Philip Rivers get sacked 7 times. The team was under enormous pressure to find a way to win at home against a very good team. The Patriots, on the other hand, were still somewhat of a team in flux. They had recently released Randy Moss, and were still working out the kinks in their new offensive scheme. Despite this, New England was an excellent 5-1 coming off an exhilarating overtime win against a good Baltimore Ravens team.

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Welcome to Flashback! As we saw a couple weeks ago, this feature will take a look at the last time the Chargers played their upcoming opponent, what happened that day, and what's changed since then. Today, we'll take a look at a meeting most Charger fans likely will want to forget--November 4, 2007 when San Diego traveled to Minnesota to play the Vikings.

On the surface, everything leading up to this game looked good for San Diego. The Chargers had reeled off 3 straight wins and looked to put their dismal 1-3 start behind them by rolling over the hapless Vikings. Minnesota was just 2-5 and riding a two-game losing streak. Most fans on both sides felt this game had a foregone conclusion--the Chargers were getting things figured out at the right time and the Vikings would simply be their next victim. There was even one article in a Minnesota newspaper that pointed out how terrible the Vikings were at covering tight ends, and wondered how they could even hope to slow All-Everything Antonio Gates. End of story, right?

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This week I'll be kicking off a new weekly feature here at Bolts from the Blue--a look back at the last time the Chargers met with their upcoming opponent. I'll recap what happened in the previous meeting, talk about potential storylines, and bring up what's changed about each opponent between their last match-up and the coming one. Today, we look at Pre-Season Opponent #3, the Arizona Cardinals.

The Chargers and Cardinals last faced off in Week 5 of the 2010 season. The Chargers had fallen to 1-2, coming off a maddening loss at Seattle (which we need not discuss in any further detail) and hoping to get the ship righted at home. The Cardinals were still trying to figure out how to replace Kurt Warner at quarterback, giving playing time to both Max Hall and Derek Anderson. Despite the uncertainty, however, the Cardinals were 2-1 having managed close wins over St. Louis and Oakland.

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Now that training camps and pre-season football are in full swing, all the acrimony and uncertainty of the summer's negotiations and legal battles are nothing more but a distant memory. For the most part, football fans can forget the whole thing ever happened, and get on with discussed player moves, who looks good, who doesn't, and so on and so forth. But you should be concerned with the result of all those negotiations-a brand new Collective Bargaining Agreement that will govern how the NFL works for the next ten years.

The new Agreement is roughly similar to the old one in structure and many of its terms, but there are numerous differences that have a real effects on how teams will operate. What I'm going to do is break down some of these provisions and talk about how they'll affect things in the future. I'm not going to analyze the entire document-it's 318 pages long and much of it doesn't really concern the everyday fan. If you have any questions about areas that I don't cover here, just ask in the comments and I'll do my best to clear it up.

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The Chargers' front office has made yet another move today, this time to shore up depth in the secondary. The Ace reports that San Diego has signed cornerback Dante Hughes to a two year deal. Hughes performed acceptably in limited snaps in 2010, and the team appears to have liked what they've seen enough to invite him back.

For those of you who do not know, Hughes was originally drafted by the Colts back in 2007. He spent a couple of years there before being released in 2009, and picked up on waivers by the Chargers. He has been released and signed back a few times, but appears to have impressed enough in 2010 to earn a multi-year contract. Acee had this also to say:

Dude played really well last year in slot. Not going to Pro Bowl. As one of 5 CBs, excellent.

As we've all been paying close attention (snicker) to the negotiations going on between the NFL and NFLPA, we all know that a new deal is likely on its way very soon and this whole labor dispute thing will be in the past. What some may have forgotten, however, is that there is still litigation pending in the federal courts. The Brady et. al. v. NFL lawsuit remains on calendar.

As a procedural matter, this doesn't mean a whole lot. Once the two sides come to an arrangement, they simply enter the settlement with the court, and file a joint request for dismissal, which will be granted assuming the court approves of the settlement. Where potential problems could arise is that each of the named plaintiffs in the case, including our own wayward Vincent Jackson, must approve of the settlement for it to be entered.

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Last week, we wrote that meetings between the owners and players were starting to bear fruit, and that a deal could be reached as early as mid-July. Now, sources have begun to leak details of the terms of the new Collective Bargaining Agreement being negotiated between the owners and players. The new arrangement is expected to mirror the previous one, with some fairly significant changes.

Revenue Sharing

Old: The players received about 60% of total revenue, but "total revenue" wasn't calculated until after the owners took $1 billion up front for costs.

New: Players will now receive approximately 48% of total revenue, a number which will vary but never dip below 46.5%. The owners will no longer receive $1 billion off the top before division, but they will still get various expense credits to fund building new stadiums and the like. This will greatly simplify accounting and audits that needed to be done under the old regime.

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Multiple reports are starting to filter out that the NFL owners and players are starting to get very close to an agreement that would end the labor dispute and allow the 2011 NFL season to begin on schedule. Over the past several weeks, representatives of the owners and players have been holding "secret" meetings to attempt to hammer out a deal before the courts get too heavily involved in the process. This is likely a good thing.

Yesterday, reports began to emerge that the sides are very close to getting a deal done. One even went as far as to claim that the deal is "80-85% done". This should be welcome news to all of us NFL fans, who are really the ones who will be shafted if the work stoppage continues into the regular season. It seems that fear over the course of the litigation process, as well as fear of missing games, has caused the two sides to come together and really try to get something done.

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Since the 8th Circuit issued a permanent stay of the injunction lifting the lockout, there hasn't been a lot of movement on the legal front. The parties have exchanged briefs, and appeared for oral arguments last week on June 3rd before the 8th Circuit. In terms of events of substance, there hasn't been a whole lot.

For now, we await the 8th Circuit's ruling on the injunction. In light of the Court's opinion when they issued the full stay, it's a safe bet that they're probably going to side with the owners. However, it's not for certain, and as a result of the uncertainty we've seen the resumption of mediation and negotiations. The bottom line is, we should all hope that the negotiations lead to a settlement, because the courts will take their time, and whatever they come up with probably won't be the best solution.

As multiple outlets are reporting, the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals has granted the NFL owners' motion for a full stay of the injunction lifting the lockout. Practically, nothing changes. The lockout was already in effect under the appellate court's temporary stay. However, the court's decision to grant a full stay pending appeal of the lockout is a large blow to the players. Essentially, it indicates that the 8th Circuit is extremely likely to side with the owners on the ultimate appeal as well.

Now, the next major development will happen on June 3rd, when the 8th Circuit will hear arguments on full appeal. Again, based on their reasoning in granting the stay, it seems very unlikely that their approach will change. This will probably kill OTAs, minicamps, and other workouts and practices designed to help get rookies acclimated. Free agency won't happen for some time yet. The good news is that the sides are back at the mediation table and supposedly progress is being made. There's still time for the 2011 season to be salvaged, but of course every week that ticks away without a new deal is one week closer to missing games.