Desperation onside kick gives Chargers new lease on life
December 15
San Diego Union-Tribune columnist Tim Sullivan
"By the time he's finished with his embroidery, Kassim Osgood will have retrieved the football from the jaws of a crocodile in the depths of a swamp, by crawling out of the ooze into a mine field, snipping the barbed wire with his bicuspids beneath an artillery barrage while favoring a strained hamstring.
The Chargers' special teams virtuoso is also a member of the Screen Actors Guild, and he knows how to milk a moment for maximum drama. So upon recovering the onside kick that made possible the Bolts' improbable 22-21 victory over the Kansas City Chiefs Sunday, Osgood embraced the opportunity for embellishment.
"There was punching, grabbing, scratching," he said. "I got bite wounds It was crazy. Somebody tried to give me a fishhook (head twist), but they couldn't get in there. It was pretty vicious out there."
Whatever indignities Osgood endured at the bottom of the pile Sunday at Arrowhead Stadium were a small price to pay for survival. Should the Chargers somehow wobble their way into the playoffs, Osgood's great adventure is as good a place as any to start the story.
"The onside kick was the biggest play of the game," tackle Marcus McNeill said. "Without that play, we wouldn't even be sitting here talking about this. We'd be talking about a loss we just took."
Without the onside kick, the Chargers don't come off the mat from an 18-point deficit. They don't score two touchdowns in the final 73 seconds and hold their breath while the Chiefs' game-ending field goal try sailed wide to the left. They don't watch Denver getting crushed in Carolina with more than an academic interest. They don't live to play another game that matters this season.
But because of Osgood's "ironclad" grip, because of the havoc-creating capabilities of fellow San Diego State product Antwan Applewhite, and because of Mike Scifres' knack for tricky kickoffs, the Chargers have been afforded another chance to demonstrate they deserve a better fate than their 6-8 record would indicate.
They will travel to Tampa next weekend in need of a two-team parlay - their own victory over the Bucs and a Denver defeat by Buffalo - in order to turn their Dec. 28 game against the Broncos into a single-elimination playoff preliminary.
If that scenario is a lot less glamorous than the Bolts' pre-season expectations, it is as much as the Chargers can ask at this stage. It is more, perhaps, than they really merit.
For the better part of three quarters Sunday, the Chargers played as if eager for their season to end. Their tackling was erratic. Their pass protection was poor. Their body language was listless. They looked like a team already eliminated, ambling back to the line of scrimmage with none of the urgency that the score and the clock would suggest.
"For all we knew," Chiefs defensive end Tamba Hali said, "that game was already won."
With 4:55 remaining in regulation, the Chargers were looking at a 21-10 defici
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