Here we are at the juncture of another season opener with the usual high hopes of the ever elusive Charger Super Bowl ring. The pre-season, finally over, feels like the last twenty years of pre-seasons -such high hopes – capacity crowds at the Q for meaningless games played mostly by unrecognizable names with one exceptional difference — our beloved Chargers are about to leave town, yet, all seems normal to the casual out of town observer.

I had a friend text me last Sunday during the Seahawks game from Pittsburgh, he asked when did the Chargers decided to stay. I said they haven’t. Then why is the stadium packed for a pre-season game?

That’s the thing, watching the Charger situation as a casual observer is like watching a divorcing couple put on a good show for say …a family wedding, it all looks so right but we all know something is wrong.

So the Chargers and the NFL give away forty thousand free tickets to a National televised game -all looks well in Pleasantville and to the rest of the world. But what happens when it actually happens?

The Chargers are moving! Wait… what?

Look, if storied franchises like the Colts, The Browns, and Cardinals can pick up and leave their rabid rustbelt fan base then you can believe the Chargers can do the same. Los Angles will get a team and the natural choice, with an already built in starter fan base is within reach, just down Highway 5, about 100 miles you say?

The diehard fans are still close enough to join the new generation of LA Chargers fans- as an added bonus the franchise doubles or even triples in value just by heading 100 miles north! It’s a win-win for the NFL, the Chargers, and Los Angeles. Finally one of the world’s biggest media markets has their own team, but this time they are doing it right, not the bumbling amateur hour of the Raiders’ move to LA and the dreaded Coliseum, or the Rams move in the early 1990’s out of the dead zone of Anaheim.

In the late 1980’s and early 1990’s it was a well-known joke in the NFL that California was dominated by the 49ers in San Francisco, the Raiders in LA and the leftovers from those two franchises went to the Rams in Orange County. The Chargers?

Well they were Tijuana’s team-by the boarder and treated as such- if there were any scraps left from the big 3 the Chargers were welcome to those and only those.

But alas the Rams and Raiders left and somehow we didn’t see this coming? LA one of the largest Markets in the world without a franchise? That can’t be right, kind of like this: you work at Maria Calendars making pies and George Clooney comes in and asks out your girlfriend who is working as a hostess at that same Maria Calendars. Wait that can’t happen right? Well San Diego, it just did and we are the Pie Boy at Marie Calendars and Los Angeles is George Clooney and guess who the girl is.

I think there was hope until that damn Clippers fiasco-the one with the owner, wife and friend/mistress. The second the clippers were sold for an astounding 2 billion it was over for the Chargers and San Diego. It showed what a small media market franchise could become in a monster media market. The value of the historically lowly Clippers, the Clippers not the Lakers we are talking about here for two billion- What would the Clippers sell for if they were located in Mission Valley or Chula Vista or Jacksonville?

So the Chargers are gone- let’s look on the bright side- it gives us time to rediscover and appreciate San Diego State football. I know I will be dedicating more time to the Aztecs this year because unlike the Maria Calendar hostess and the Clippers and now the Chargers – Colleges can’t just up and leave us for something better.