 Tomlinson Setting the Pace for Chargers NFL Nation be warned, the San Diego Chargers are a team again. It may also behoove you to know that their yet mediocre, 3-3 record hardly tells the tale of the level they excelled at on Sunday during their 28-14 thrashing of the rival Oakland Raiders. Who, after all, can possibly put words -- as superlative as they may be -- on a performance that bags reigning league MVP LaDainian Tomlinson198 all-purpose yards and four touchdowns, while simultaneously netting six sacks from its again fire-breathing defense? As game plan goes, it doesn't get much better than that, a declaration that also speaks to coach Norv Turner suddenly newfound ability to garner the absolute most from his his team. Two weeks after pundits far- and-wide clamored for his head, justifiably so given the defending AFC South champ's underachieving 1-3 start, the Chargers now again sit as rulers of their own universe. Heading into this week's bye, San Diego, owners of the league's best regular-season mark at 14-2 last season, stand tied with Kansas City for the division lead. More significantly, they're starting to resemble themselves in all the ways that matter most. Can you say LaDainian Tomlinson? On Sunday,the star back tied Jim Brown for fourth on the all-time list for touchdowns with 106 and passed Earl Campbell for 23rd place in rushing yards with 9,505. Clearly, the only numbers that truly mattered all belonged to LT. Over the first three games, he rushed for just 130 yards (average of 43 a game), but in the subsequent three has run for 397 (average of 132), given him 527 yards and seven touchdowns through the first six games, compared with the 473 yards and eight scores at the same time last season during his record-setting campaign. “Vintage LT,” cornerback Quentin Jammer told the San Diego Tribune. “He's the best player in the league; he really hadn't got off to a great start, but you know what he can do. You know if you keep chugging at it, eventually he'll kill somebody. He'll probably start killing a lot of people now.” That is a mindset shared by Turner. “It was important for us to get to 3-3 at the bye,” said Turner, who beat the team that fired him after the 2005 season. “We can work on the things we need to work on, things we need to get better at,” he told the Tribune. “We come out of the bye and we have a 10-game season.” One in which they would be wise to place squarely on the shoulders of LaDainian Tomlinson.
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