The San Diego Chargers 2-2 start to the season has prompted general manager AJ Smith to call the team’s play “soft”. Yesterday, linebacker Shawne Merriman bristled at this statement.

“I don’t know too much of that. That’s an opinion of a person, and it’s not needed,” Merriman said. “We know that we have to play better. [...] We’re going to make adjustments in this locker room as far as players and our attitudes and getting after people a little more. But all that extra (stuff) is not needed at all.”

Merriman later added that if Smith were female and a skosh more Asian he’d make him sorry he opened his punkass mouth.

Seriously, is this the guy you want to provoke? I’ve never met Merriman, but, based on his rep, if I ever saw him walking towards me on the sidewalk I’d cross the street. Nosiree, I would never do anything to provoke the guy.

Say, have you all seen this picture before?

It’s eight days until the Chargers open their season against the even more rapidly disintegrating Raiders (who in the last 24 hours have cut their best quarterback and traded a future 1st round pick to the Patriots for a 30-year-old slightly above average defensive end with one year left on his contract) but Rapeasaurus is already in midseason form, getting a battery charge – which sounds so appropriate for a Charger – for [dons responsible blogger pants] allegedly [removes pants] choking and “restraining” (I think that’s legalese for stuffing her in a cat carrier) unexplainable celebrity Tila Tequila. Man, Jeff Reed’s gonna be pissed about Merriman messing with his girl.

So that’s a fun development for a team that Vegas is now giving better odds to win the Super Bowl than the defending champs. This was supposed to be the one non-clusterfu-k in the AFC West!

UPDATE: The San Diego Union Tribune is reporting that Tequila wasn’t seriously hurt, so I guess the Gigantosaur at least didn’t choke her that hard. C’mon, it’s not even a crime unless you do it at full strength.

ESPN’s Chris Mortensen just reported live on SportsCenter that Shawne Merriman’s season is over and he’s ready to have reconstructive surgery on his fucked up knee.

From what I understand, this means that Merriman will be in uniform on Sunday. Good news, Charger fans!