The Chargers beat the Colts 23-21 Sunday night to take sole control of the AFC West lead, so you would think the Chargers might at least be somewhat happy. Not really. Norv Turner has failed the Chargers in his play calling, motivation, and overall coaching, and the players are starting to complain.

LaDainian Tomlinson said after the game, “At some point things have got to change for us, because what we’re doing now is not good enough. The way we’re going, we’re not going to be able to beat the elite teams in the league. I mean, we beat one tonight, and we’re happy. But it has to get better.”

He should be mad. The Chargers are running the ball less than last season, and LT’s carries are down 1 per game from what they were last year. One veteran told Yahoo!:

“We have the best running back in football, and yet we don’t sense a commitment to the running game. Last year, teams put eight in the box against us, and we ran anyway – and found a way to be successful. That set up the play action, which fueled our passing game. This year, it seems like we run because we’re supposed to; it balances out our passing attack. But it’s not like being physical at the point of attack and running the ball is our personality.”

But it’s not only Turner’s celebrated play calling that is faltering. His not-so-celebrated leadership is also being called into question. Michael Silver, Yahoo! Sports columnist, paraphrasedTurner’s speech following the win Sunday night down to: This could be the game that gives us the momentum we need to do something special. Even though we did a lot of things wrong, we still found a way to win, and we can build on that.

At 5-4, the Chargers have a lot of building to do to get back to where they were last year.

Then again, they did win…

I’d be pretty apathetic too, if my team needed Peyton Manning to throw six interception, allow two special teams touchdowns, and miss two field goals, just to win by three. Now abut those Colts…

Peyton Manning lost one playoff game two years ago in part because of a missed Mike Vanderjagt field goal. The Patriots won a lot of playoff games because of Adam Vinatieri field goals in the past few years. The Colts won the Super Bowl last year against a Chicago Bears team led by “Wrecks” Grossman who was responsible for four turnovers in the big game.

Everything flip-flopped Sunday. Vinatieri was 0-for-2 on field goals. Manning threw six picks. And Rex Grossman led a comeback win for the Bears.

Where to get started?

Peyton Manning

The Reaction, a liberal blogger, has come up with 10 politically-charged reasons Manning threw six interceptions. Despite his obvious lack of common sense, I must say that some of his reasons were pretty funny. However, I think it was because Peyton had a bet going with Nancy Pelosi to see who could get a lower rating.

(For the record, Pelosi and the Democrats won the bet, having a Congressional approval rating of 29% to Manning’s passer rating of 49 for the game.)

Adam Vinatieri

Missing big field goals is Scott Norwood’s job. But, without Norwood, Vinatieri did the best he could, going 0-for-2, including a 29-yard game-winner. We Suck at Sports made a really good post on that topic.

Special Teams Defense

Well, they did about as well as the Colts special teams offense…

So, who should I be mad at? No one, I guess, cause I don’t really like the Colts, but I hate Norv Turner, so I’ll just be mad at him.