For the first time since their 1994 Super Bowl season, the Chargers are getting exceptional national attention. But it’s not serious.
Late-night comics are piling on the 0-4 Los Angeles Chargers — one of four winless teams in the NFL. Email strings full of Bolts humor are being widely forwarded.
Jimmy Kimmel noted the empty seats at the 27,000-occupancy StubHub Center in Carson, where the Bolts play: “Even Sean Spicer said: Wow, that is like a small crowd you got there.”
The ABC host showed a faux commercial for “Sunday self-guided meditation retreats at the StubHub Center.” (Held eight Sundays a year.)
Conan O’Brien quipped: “San Diego has started building a border wall. Not to keep out immigrants, but to keep the LA Chargers from coming back.”
Joke archives online have carved out space for the Chargers, including jokes4us.com and fazemo.com.
A Chargers spokesman did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Many jokes circulating are retreads.
One goes: “Q: Did you hear about the joke that Phillip Rivers told his receivers? A: It went over their heads.”
Similar versions have mocked fellow quarterbacks Eli Manning (New York Giants), Tony Romo (Dallas Cowboys), Derek Carr (Oakland Raiders) and Jay Cutler (Chicago Bears).
Also: “Q: What do the Chargers and the mailman have in common? A: Neither deliver on Sunday.” (Plug in the Buffalo Bills, Philadelphia Eagles and Chicago Bears.)
In San Diego, an email going around has 18 jokes, including:
- The LA Times had a story about a blonde burglar who broke into the Los Angeles Chargers trophy room.
- According to a new poll, 91 percent of people are satisfied with their lives. The other 9 percent are Los Angeles Chargers fans.
- My wife was about to put my son in a Los Angeles Chargers jersey, but I reminded her it was a choking hazard.
- I guess the new Chargers official cologne is creating a lot of buzz. It turns out you wear it and the other guy scores.
- Last Friday on Jeopardy under the category of Sports, they had the following answer: “Of all the football teams now in Los Angeles, these are the two best ones.” The correct question was “Who are the UCLA Bruins and USC Trojans?”
- Rumor has it the LA Chargers keep their season tickets on their dashboards so they can park in the handicap spaces.
(The last one is so universal, it targeted Penn State graduates.)
One recipient of the Chargers-jokes email is former San Diego police Lt. Jim Pilling, now retired to Eugene, Oregon.
“I was a San Diego Chargers fan since 1961,” he said. But when he went to a homeless camp in Eugene, trying to give his Bolts gear away, “they refused it.”
“Guess they hear the news about the Chargers as well,” Pilling said.