I think that rather than it being such a tragedy, its a case where the team stats are really deceiving. That Chargers team just wasn't all that special. Look at the roster on both offense and defense, and there aren't that many notable players. This was a team that was 2-5 after seven games, having scored 20 or fewer points in four of those. Is that a sign of an "all time great" season? And strangely, their defense allowed 251 rushing yards in one game, and followed that up the next week by allowing 67 total yards. Really up and down/unpredictable.