SAN DIEGO — Philip Rivers reminded everyone that There’s A Lot Of Football Left, which assumes the San Diego Chargers eventually will start playing some.

Last Monday they brought hope to Oakland by waiting until the witching hour to win, 24-20. On Sunday they suffered repeated claustrophobia near the Baltimore goal and lost, 31-26.
Both games provided extraordinary juice, for September, but neither supported the dutifully babbled notion that these Chargers ooze with talent and inevitability.
Their playmakers did all they could.
Rivers strafed the Ravens for 436 yards and two touchdowns and had a QB rating of 85.0. Last season opposing quarterbacks averaged 179.7 yards on Baltimore and had a rating of 65.0.
Darren Sproles also took a swing pass 81 yards for an early touchdown, the longest pass play against Baltimore in six years.
And Vincent Jackson, 6-foot-5, kept leaping over the Ravens’ violence and bringing down footballs, including a 35-yard touchdown on third-and-18 in the third quarter.
No, it was the play enablers that cost San Diego, the question marks that were replacing the prescribed X’s and O’s.
Because irreplaceable center Nick Hardwick and right guard Louis Vazquez were injured, the Chargers started Scott Mruczkowski at center and Brandyn Dombrowski, an undrafted free agent, at guard.
“Those guys fought hard and did well, considering how many times we threw the ball,” Rivers said.
But the 52-man roster and the hard salary cap doesn’t shelter you from injuries, especially in such proximity to the ball.
And with fourth-and-two on the Ravens 15, with 35 seconds left, Ray Lewis shot the gap between the two promoted subs and decked Sproles for a 5-yard loss and a Ravens victory.
“He’s seen the play so many times,” Pro Bowl safety Ed Reed said. “He was on Rivers at the same time the ball was.”
“We had to run the best thing we could, to get a new set of downs,” Rivers said. “It’s one play. It’s not why we lost. We could spend as much time talking about Play 33.”
The two-time NFL Defensive Player of the Year and 10-time Pro Bowler accounted for himself all day, with three tackles for loss.
“I was bouncing outside on that play all day,” Lewis, 34, said. “When it was on the line, as soon as Philip dropped down, I shot. You watch it on film time and again. You ask yourself, ’Can I shoot that?’ It wasn’t a called play at all. It’s either I make it, or they make it. I tell my teammates I’ll never ask them to do something I won’t do myself, and that’s take a risk.”
“The Chargers know a lot about winning but I guess Ray Lewis knows a little more,” Ravens coach John Harbaugh said. “He made the greatest football play I’ve ever seen.”
The Chargers will take little plays right now, especially involving tackling. Baltimore banged away for 130 rushing yards. Last week the Raiders ran for 148 on San Diego.
And Turner himself seemed to lose his nerve at the end of the half, although he carefully explained his inaction later.
The Chargers, who never scored a touchdown inside the red zone, got to the one-yard-line when Rivers hit Jackson, and Trevor Pryce thoughtfully stopped the clock for San Diego by roughing Rivers (on a typical fussbudget NFL call) and now the clock was stopped.
Except that Rivers assumed the play clock had been reset to 25, as it is when a penalty comes in the 10 seconds before the ball must be snapped. Instead, he had only 12 seconds. Mruczkowski was busy calling a protection, Rivers was moving people around, and here came a delay-of-game flag.
“That’s inexcusable on my part, to have a play go backward with no time going off the clock,” Rivers said.
With Hardwick in, it probably doesn’t happen.
On the next two plays the Ravens brought a party of eight to blitz Rivers, forcing incompletions, and now 10 seconds remained.
As the crowd blinked, had another drink and blinked again, Turner sent out kicker Nate Kaeding on third down.
You’ve never seen less celebration over a made field goal, and the Chargers still trailed, 21-16.
“I’ve been in that situation before,” Turner said. “I didn’t want a sack there and I didn’t want Philip to have to throw it and have it bounce off somebody and into their hands. They were blitzing from everywhere, and I just felt we had to get the three points.”
Then Devon Landry picked off Rivers early in the third quarter, Willis McGahee scored, and Baltimore got a 12-point lead.
Yes, there was A Lot Of Football Left, and the Chargers used nearly every second.
They also have lost eight of the past 11 regular season games they’ve played outside the bubble of the AFC West.