Chargers Are Really Being Fan Friendly So Far in 2008

More "LT on the field" than most Charger fans have seen in the past week.

There are plenty of reasons to be a San Diego Chargers fan. Philip Rivers is, of course, awesome. That stems from his alma mater primarily. LaDanian Tomlinson is also quite good. The weather is generally nice there. And Norv Turner is simply brilliant. Their division title should be a cakewalk this year.

Really, if you're Chargers management, there's very little you have to do in order to keep your West Coasters happy. But there are a few things you can do early on to not make them particularly thrilled. Like holding LDT out of preseason games because of an injured groin, which is what they did. Via U-T Chargerblog.

Not really. He's totally healthy.

But that's what the Chargers are saying is the reason LT won't play in tomorrow's preseason opener against the Dallas Cowboys. Technically, only injured players are allowed to not dress for preseason games. (It has a little something to do with the NFL charging y'all regular-season prices to see an exhibition.)

Yeah, that would tee me off. First, NFL teams should in no way charge full regular season price for preseason games. Economics, apparently, dictate that they can. It's understandable because we all want live professional football right now, but frankly, it's bush league.
The stars aren't playing the entire time, and in some cases not at all, and these franchises are already raking in cash hand over fist. Throw a freaking bone back to the fans.

Or at least let them drink as much beer as they want at the games. Oh right. The Chargers aren't really handling that issue well either.

But they have implemented a whole new set of super-happy-fun-time fan behavior policies for the upcoming season.

Fans will be limited to two drinks per purchase until the start of the third quarter. After that, a one-drink limit per transaction goes into effect. No alcohol will be sold in the fourth quarter.

Alcohol sales during the Dec. 4 Oakland Raiders game will cease after the first half.

Fans without pre-paid parking permits will be allowed into the parking lot four hours before kickoff. Those with permits will still have access five hours before the start of the game.

Fans will be able to use cell phones to text security officers for assistance during the game if they encounter problems. Details of the text system will be released when it becomes available.

Alcohol management teams will monitor fans inside the stadium and kick people out who they deem are drunk.

Intolerance ... will not be tolerated. And neither will fun of any kind, apparently.

Now, in fairness, the Chargers reported not only 15 arrests per game last year but also the need to revoke season ticket privileges for 700 fans over the past two years.

But still, this isn't a college football atmosphere we're talking about -- people are paying a ton of money for the right to attend football games. I completely agree that the Chargers should do their best to prevent disruptive behavior during games and dangerous, intoxicated situations afterwards, but there has to be a better way of doing it than running the fun police through the parking lot and stadium before, during and after each game.

Would a freaking bus system sponsored by Budweiser be that hard to put together? Or even that expensive? Make larger portions of the stadium alcohol free/family zones or maybe even provide X number of beer tickets to each fan with their purchase of a ticket. But California is, last time I checked, still America. Just probably doesn't feel like it right now.