STILL WAITING FOR A HAPPY ENDING CHARGERS' SCHOTTENHEIMER HOPING TO PUT AN END TO PLAYOFF WOES.

Byline: BILLY WITZ Staff Writer

SAN DIEGO - As the clock was winding down inside 30 seconds, the Kansas City Chiefs scrambled to set up for fourth-and-2 at the Denver Broncos' 20-yard line.

As the players waited for quarterback Elvis Grbac to relay the play from offensive coordinator Paul Hackett up in the booth, Grbac put both hands over the earholes of his helmet trying to drown out the din of an anxious Arrowhead Stadium.

All he heard was static.

As panic set in, Grbac called for a pass into the end zone, not the short one into the flat that Hackett was frantically shouting, one designed to pick up a first down and get the ball out of bounds to stop the clock.

Some players heard Grbac, some didn't.

A moment later, Grbac's pass into double coverage to Lake Dawson was batted away. The Chiefs, who owned the best record in the AFC for the second time in three seasons in 1997, had lost their playoff opener again.

It's the way seasons often end for Marty Schottenheimer -- dramatically, torturously, with a bizarre twist and another chorus of questions about why the NFL's winningest active coach can't win in the playoffs.

Schottenheimer jumps back in the saddle today, one whose bags are burdened with more than two decades of history, when his San Diego Chargers play host to the New England Patriots in a divisional playoff.

The Chargers carry a 10-game winning streak, an AFC-best 14-2 record and the NFL's most valuable player in LaDainian Tomlinson into the game. But the focus this week is on Schottenheimer, who has a 5-12 career playoff record, hasn't won a postseason game since Joe Montana was his quarterback, and is the winningest coach to never reach a Super Bowl or NFL title game.

His playoff record carries such a stigma that there is speculation Schottenheimer, who has been given no assurances that he'll be back for the final year of his contract, could be fired if the Chargers lose today.

Even former players who admire him can't help getting in a playful dig. Rich Gannon, the retired quarterback, said he left a message for Chargers assistant coach Greg Manusky, a former teammate under Schottenheimer in Kansas City.

``I told him to tell Marty to stay out of the way in the playoffs,'' Gannon said with a laugh.

Schottenheimer doesn't laugh, but he doesn't duck his playoff record. ``There's no getting around it,'' he said.

But he isn't dwelling on it, either. He marches ahead with the same square jaw, narrow focus and steely determination that one would expect from a journeyman linebacker whose football roots lay in western Pennsylvania.

His core beliefs -- emphasizing defense, details and not beating yourself -- have helped him compile a 200-126 record, a better winning percentage than Bill Parcells, Bill Walsh, Tom Landry, Chuck Noll and the man who will stand on the opposite sideline today, Bill Belichick. Between them, they've won 15 Super Bowls.

``My approach to the regular season and the postseason is the same,'' Schottenheimer said. ``That's to prepare your football team to do what they do best and try not to make decisions that would put your football team in a position where they don't have the ability to control the outcome.''

That approach has been dubbed Martyball, a derisive poke at his conservatism but one that's so synonymous with Schottenheimer that it turns up more than 48,000 hits on a Google search and has its own page on the online encyclopedia Wikipedia.

``You play the percentages, you play to the strengths of your football team to mask their deficiencies,'' Schottenheimer said. ``I've never played a game to avoid a loss. The way things have unfolded, maybe some people would view it that way. But I've always tried to win the game.''

Chargers receiver Kennan McCardell has played for three coaches who have won Super Bowls -- Joe Gibbs, Jon Gruden and Belichick -- and another, Tom Coughlin, who twice went to AFC championship games.

They all share a common trait.

``All those guys got ultra-aggressive in the playoffs, like they're coming to knock you out,'' McCardell said. ``As a player, you tend to feed off that.''

McCardell has seen that in the Chargers this season, at least since a 16-13 loss to Baltimore in September when they tried to nurse a lead.

``This year we've been aggressive,'' McCardell said. ``When people think of being aggressive, they think offense, offense, offense. But our defense has been steady in going after people, and we've been aggressive on special teams. I don't call that Martyball.''

Still, if San Diegans are anxious, it's not without reason. Two years ago, the Chargers, with the NFL's second-highest scoring offense, rarely threw the ball downfield until they were trailing the New York Jets by 10 points in the fourth quarter.

After getting into overtime thanks to a roughing-the-passer penalty, the Chargers moved to the Jets' 24-yard line. But three straight handoffs to Tomlinson netted just 2yards, and kicker Nate Kaeding missed a 40-yard field goal. The Jets eventually won, 23-20.

``We have a very good field-goal kicker who has no problem from that particular distance, and I've got the best running back in football,'' said Schottenheimer, whose biggest regret about the loss was an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty he received that contributed to a Jets touchdown. ``I made the decision we were going to run the ball and kick the field goal and win it. I was not going to deprive our football team of the opportunity to win the game on a field. I had every confidence in our ability to do that.

``As it turned out,'' Schottenheimer said with a long pause, ``I was wrong. But the process and the thinking was not wrong.''

Should he have settled for a 40-yard kick?

``At the end of the day, you're charged with one thing -- putting the ball in the players' hands,'' he said. ``I'll tell you what -- I can show you a video clip and there was an opportunity for us on one of those plays to run the ball right into the end zone. The hole was that big. It was that big.''

What's so remarkable about Schottenheimer's history is how often he can roll back the video. Eight of the 12 playoff losses have been by five points or fewer, and in virtually every one it's possible to pick out a what-if moment.

What if Grbac's headset hadn't gone out against the Broncos? What if Lin Elliott didn't miss three field goals in the fourth quarter of a 10-7 loss to Indianapolis in 1995, knocking out another 13-3 team?

What if a phantom holding call didn't nullify a 12-yard run by Christian Okoye, leaving Nick Lowry inches short of a 52-yard field goal against Miami in 1991.

In Cleveland, what if quarterbacks Bernie Kosar, Gary Danielson and Don Strock all hadn't been hurt, leaving Mike Pagel to lose a 10-point fourth-quarter lead in a 24-23 loss to Houston, Schottenheimer's final game there.

What if Browns receiver Webster Slaughter had run Denver cornerback Jeremiah Castille off into the end zone -- as he was instructed -- instead of stopping, allowing Castille to run up and knock the ball loose from Earnest Byner, who otherwise would have walked into the end zone for the tying touchdown? Maybe Cleveland's 38-33 loss in the 1987 AFC title game would have had a happier ending.

Then, of course, there was ``The Drive,'' when John Elway took the Broncos 98yards to tie the score in the final minute, and win it in overtime. What if the shotgun snap that deflected off the hip of receiver Steve Watson, who was going in motion, had bounced differently?

``The ball ricochets to them instead of gosh-only-knows where, and you fall on it and win the game,'' Schottenheimer said. ``Sometimes the football gods step in and have a hand in this.''

Still, not all of it is crazy bounces. In the Chiefs' loss to Denver, Schottenheimer chose to start Grbac, who missed six weeks with an injury, over Gannon, who was 5-1 -- including a victory over the Broncos -- in his absence. If nothing else, perhaps Gannon's headset would have worked.

``That was probably the call that jeopardized what we had done,'' said James Hasty, a Pro Bowl safety in Kansas City. ``That really came back to haunt us.''

Other than that, players such as Hasty, Gannon and Clay Matthews, a Pro Bowl linebacker in Cleveland, are willing to write off the losses to bad luck.

Hasty says he learned more from Schottenheimer than any coach he played for, ``including Pete Carroll.''

Gannon says nobody is better than Schottenheimer at managing a game.

And, upon reflection, perhaps the better team won.

It's worth noting that nine of Schottenheimer's losses have come to teams quarterbacked by Elway, Dan Marino, Jim and Warren Moon -- all of whom are in the Hall of Fame.

``I don't think the knock that he can't win in the playoffs is entirely justified,'' Matthews said. ``Sometimes he didn't have the talent to make the over-the-top plays. This team might be different. All of a sudden he has some special players. If it's a mathematical game, and his luck's been predominantly bad, then maybe he's due for some good luck.''

And a quarterback whose headset works.

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CAPTION(S):

3 photos, 2 boxes

Photo:

(1 -- 3 -- color) Whether it was at Cleveland (right), Kansas City (left) or San Diego, Marty Schottenheimer has had little success in the postseason.

Getty Images

Box:

(1) TODAY'S GAMES

(2) SCHOTTY PERFORMANCES