With the pungent lingering odor of last week’s California wildfires mixing with the sweet hibachi smoke of Chargers fans’ tailgating, football resumed in San Diego without a hitch last Sunday.

“I would describe the atmosphere as a third-world war-zone with smoke in the air and ash on everything else,” an NFL agent based in Temecula, Calif., Derrick Fox said yesterday.

The game was a bittersweet affair, with those in attendance recognizing the admirable work of local firefighters and government officials, led by Governor Schwarzenegger, as a measure of civic pride. And the Chargers walloped the fading Texans, 35–10, in one of their most complete games of the season.

Whether or not you thought football should be played following the evacuation of thousands — Qualcomm Stadium, the biggest local shelter for the displaced, was cleared of the more than 10,000 who had taken refuge there — it was hard not to notice how much better this Chargers team is than the one that started 1-3 and was labeled a Norv Turner-botched failure.

Hard, that is, if you weren’t completely inundated with talk of Colts-Patriots, which started last week as those two teams won their games against decent foes by an aggregate score of 83–14. One of those teams is guaranteed to lose this weekend, and if it’s the Colts, they face a second straight monster test in Week 10 and what many thought would be last year’s AFC championship game — Indianapolis at San Diego.

The Chargers’ stock, like that of Schwarzenegger, is on the rise again.

After last week’s win, you can suddenly forget about the team’s losses to the Patriots, Packers, and Chiefs (all first-place teams, by the way) and start thinking about how the most dangerous team at the beginning of the season might now rank second only to the Patriots in fear factor.

Consider the following:

• LaDainian Tomlinson is back. After three nada games to start the season, he has averaged 149.8 yards an outing over his last four games with six touchdowns. He is running at 5.9 yards a clip over that stretch and has yet to fumble in 2007. Tomlinson also gets stronger as the game goes on too, averaging 11.7 yards after his 20th carry in games.

• The passing offense has gotten back on track, as quarterback Philip Rivers has cut down on mistakes after losing three fumbles and throwing six interceptions in the first four games. In three games since then, all wins, he has completed 68% of his passes with five TDs and only one interception. And now, he has wide receiver Chris Chambers, rescued from the horrible Dolphins in a slick trade pulled off by general manager A.J. Smith. In his first game with San Diego last week, Chambers caught a touchdown and appears a perfect complement on the outside to Tomlinson and tight end Antonio Gates.

• Gates is virtually indefensible — too big for safeties to cover and too quick for most linebackers. “I’m not sure he’s not one of the top five wide receivers in the league,” said CBS analyst Phil Simms on a conference call Tuesday to stump for the Patriots-Colts broadcast. Though Gates is a tight end in name, the Chargers line him up everywhere: split wide, in the slot, in motion. And he runs receiver routes — out-and-ups, hitch-and-gos, post patterns, and fly routes. Witness his after-the-catch efficiency last Sunday: three catches for 92 yards and two touchdowns.

• The defense has returned to form. After allowing an average of 400.7 yards (283.7 of those through the air) in their three losses, the Chargers have clamped down since. The Broncos, Raiders, and Texans averaged only 302.7 yards per game (226 passing) against them. This might not be the 62-sack group of a year ago, but it’s looking far better than it did in September.

• Turner has gotten it. After his job actually seemed in jeopardy only one month in, he has gone back to basics, maintained the confidence of his talented roster, and withstood a potentially big distraction last week with many of his players being evacuated because of the fires.

“I am not looking forward to seeing them,” said an AFC defensive coach whose team has the Chargers left on the schedule. “It was bad enough when you had to decide, ‘Okay, who do we take away — LT or Gates?’ You choose one, not both.”

“We usually focus on stopping the run. But now you add (Chambers) to the mix … that’s tough. That’s almost guaranteeing that two of the three will do damage as long as (Rivers) has time to throw.”

And Rivers has had time. After allowing nine sacks in the first four games — they allowed 28 the entire 2006 season — the offensive line has clamped down since, surrendering only one sack in the past 51 dropbacks. Turner has figured it out: When the Chargers throw fewer times, they get much more per play from their passing game. It’s easy for an inventive offensive coach to get cute with so many weapons, but the reality remains that Tomlinson needs his 20 carries a game. Sometimes, it’s just that simple.

The football-watching nation’s eyes this Sunday will be focused on the much-hyped Super Bowl XLI 1 /2 between the Colts and Patriots, but there’s a team that plays earlier in the day that might be right in that same discussion.

The Chargers, it appears, are back.

Mr. Edholm, a senior editor at Pro Football Weekly, can be reached at eedholm@pfwmedia.com.