Former Bolts' Star: This Was Best of 'Air Coryell' Teams

(EDITOR'S NOTE: To listen to the Ed White interview, click on the following link: https://cms.megaphone.fm/channel/eyetestfortwo?selected=BRCM2042613196)

With coach Don Coryell enshrined into the Pro Football Hall of Fame this summer, it’s fair to ask which of his four “Air Coryell” playoff teams (1979-81) was best. It’s also fair to focus on two of those four – the 1980 and ’81 Bolts – mostly because they went the farthest.

Each reached conference championship games. So the conversation probably starts there. Except it doesn’t. Not when Ed White is asked, it doesn’t.

White was a star offensive guard for all four teams and is a member of the Chargers’ Hall of Fame and its 40^th and 50^th anniversary teams. So he should know. And what he knows … or at least firmly believes … is that neither the 1980 or ’81 Chargers’ clubs was the most Super Bowl worthy.

The 1979 club was.

“We had a great team that year,” he said in a recent “Eye Test for Two” podcast. “That, for me, was the one that got cut short.”

He’s right about that.

With a 12-4 record, the Chargers were the best team in pro football that season. They had the league’s top passing game and ranked second in total offense to Pittsburgh. Furthermore, they had an atypical defense – which is another way of saying it didn’t leak like the Lusitania. It ranked second only to Tampa Bay in points allowed and was fifth in total defense

But on top of that, the Chargers opened at home vs. Houston, a club so crippled that it was without Hall-of-Fame running back Earl Campbell, quarterback Dan Pastorini and wide receiver Ken Burrough (although he made a second-half decoy cameo).

Predictably, the Chargers opened as prohibitive favorites. Unexpectedly, they closed a 17-14 upset victim –the worst defeat in the club’s history and one that left a heartbroken Coryell, head in hands, in tears afterward.

“We got sidetracked into believing that Earl Campbell wasn’t going to play or Dan Pastorini,” said White. “I don’t think we were mentally prepared for what happened.”

Nobody was. The Chargers’ offense that season operated more like a blitzkrieg, with Hall-of-Fame quarterback Dan Fouts throwing for more yards than anyone in league history (4,082), receivers Charlie Joiner and John Jefferson each producing over 1,000 yards in receptions and the Chargers becoming the first AFC West champion to throw more times (541 plays) than it ran (481). Plus, they crushed defending Super Bowl-champion Pittsburgh, 35-7, in November.

So what happened? Everything … and nothing … that’s what.

“I don’t think Dan had a particularly good day that day,“ White said. “I think there were several interceptions. So that probably meant the offensive line didn’t block that well that day.”

There were more than several interceptions. There were five of them, with Houston defensive back Vernon Perry responsible for four -- three into double coverage. Fouts hadn’t thrown five in a game all season. In fact, he had three or more only three times. And Perry? The rookie from the CFL had three all year and only 11 in his five-year NFL career.

Extraordinary? You said it.

In fact, a Sports Illustrated story that followed the game alleged that the Oilers had studied their opponent so meticulously that they were able to steal signals relayed from the sidelines to Fouts and pass them to middle linebacker Gregg Bingham.

The rest you know.

“I hadn’t heard that,” White said. “Wow. I don’t remember the details. You kinda put the bad stuff out of your mind. I’m sure it was a combination of a lot of things.”

Had the Chargers won a Super Bowl that season … or any of Coryell’s years in St. Louis or San Diego … he almost certainly would have been elected to Canton before now. Sadly, he was chosen 13 years after his passing.

“I had a special (relationship with him),” said White. “It dates back to the fact that Don was probably the reason I ended up in San Diego. I know he was. And we became very good friends … He just wore his heart on his sleeve. He was unbelievable.”