Sports Radio Interviews

Norv Turner and the Chargers Have a Chance to Claim 1st Place in the AFC West This Weekend

At the beginning of this season, San Diego had Super Bowl aspirations.  They have had one of the most talented teams in the NFL for the past couple of years, but they have yet to be able to put it all together.  Many people thought this would finally be their year.  Phillip Rivers was coming off an incredible season a year ago, LaDainian Tomlinson appeared to finally be healthy to start the season, and Shawne Merriman was coming back from an injury plagued year.  However after five games, the Chargers were 2-3 and many people wrote them off.  Why wouldn’t they have?  Not only were the Chargers once again off to a slow start, but the Denver Broncos with new Head Coach Josh McDaniels were 5-0. 

Things have changed dramatically since that time and the two teams are heading in opposite directions.  San Diego has ripped of four straight wins while the Broncos have dropped three straight.  Here we are going into week 11 and there is a tie atop the AFC West with first place on the line this weekend in the Mile High City.   

Norv Turner joined XX Sports Radio in San Diego to talk about the slow start to the season for San Diego, how they turned things around, dealing with the injuries that they have sustained this year and the showdown against the Broncos for first place this week.

On whether he thought they would be at this point after the slow start to the season:

“Well we went through a tough month in September and we certainly regrouped during the bye.  We got some people healthy, we got these new faces that we we’re playing with, we got to know them better and they got to know us better.  We’ve added some young guys to our team that have played and got better each week and that have helped us.  Kevin Ellison is playing well and James Holt goes in, he was on our practice squad a month ago, and he has four tackles on our coverage team so we have some young guys that are helping us.”

On how he felt after the 2-3 start:

“I understand people’s reaction and it’s hard when you have a high expectation and you know you have a good football team.  I knew coming out of the Raider game that we were going to have a tough stretch and we were going to have to handle it and manage it the best we could.  I told the guys last night I thought the biggest win that we had to this point was Miami because we were beat up and we were playing a lot of different guys.  Losing Jamal (Williams) was a big loss and our guys hung in there good.  Obviously coming back from Pittsburgh it was tough, but we had chances of beating Denver here.  We played better than I think it was perceived.  I liked the progress that we made in that game.  I wish we would’ve won the game, but I saw us getting better and we have.  We’ve played a lot of different guys and they’ve responded.”

On the play of Shawne Merriman and how that has helped the defense:

“There’s no question that the combination of Shawne Merriman coming off the edge and doing things that he does and his partner on the other side, Shaun Phillips has had a great month…getting those two guys healthier and playing at a high level is a big part of our defense.  We’ve had so many guys step up.  Brandon Siler the last few weeks has been outstanding.  He was our third inside linebacker and he’s come in and played at a really high level.  As I said, Ellison has given us a lift, Steven Gregory playing in the slot has made that a lot tougher on teams especially on third down.  I think (Antonio) Cromartie is really having a good year.  He came back from Pittsburgh where he had a tough night and he has really responded and played awfully well over the past month.”

On the game against Denver this weekend to take over first place:

“I think the feeling that we had was we had to take care of ourselves.  I don’t look ahead on the schedule very much, but I knew the stretch we had was going to be tough.  Kansas City in Kansas City is a tough game, Oakland obviously we beat them in the first game on the last play of the game and their defensive front is as good as anybody in the league, New York and Philadelphia, it just feels good to be playing the way we are playing.  I always look at the divisions that we are playing.  You know teams in our division are gonna take hits and when you’re playing against real good teams, going on the road, doing what we’re doing, that everyone in our division is going to take some hits.  They come at different times on the schedule and sometimes they come unexpected in terms of Denver losing to Washington last week, but it’s what it is when you have the type of schedule that we have.  You just hope you can play as well as you can play and if it works out right, you have a chance to play in the type of game we’re going to play in on Sunday.”

On the reasons for the struggles early this season:

“Well there’s about three things that I would point to.  LT (LaDainian Tomlinson) sprained his ankle in the opening game and missed the next two games.  Nick Hardwick has the foot injury and hasn’t played in quite awhile and obviously hasn’t played since the Raiders game so we had a dramatic change there.  Then we started a rookie right guard in the opener and he got hurt and he missed three games.  Those things along with playing Baltimore, Miami and Pittsburgh in a three game stretch do make it tough to run the ball.  I think we’re getting back into a rhythm and when we have opportunities to run the ball like we did yesterday than we’re getting back to where we want to be.”

Listen to Norv Turner on XX Sports Radio in San Diego with Darren Smith

Tags: AFC West, NFL, Norv Turner, San Diego Chargers, XX Sports Radio