"I try to be a reasonable man," CBS' top NFL analyst said, "and I wait, and don't react to things week after week because there are so many changes ... ."

That's the approach he used to try to size up the San Diego Chargers' regular-season performance.

"I probably wrote the Chargers off, no exaggeration, at least five times," Simms admitted, as this recharged squad scrambled into the postseason with an 8-8 record, sent the Indiana- polis Colts home last week with an overtime win and is somehow on the precipice of possibly hosting the AFC Championship.

"I fell into that trap many times," Simms added. "How could you not?"

The next trap game for Southern California viewers is whether to invest time on Sunday (Channel 2, 1:30 p.m.) in case the Chargers' AFC playoff game at Pittsburgh ends up being even more bizarre than the Steelers' 11-10 win from Week 11.

With Los Angeles being a so-called secondary NFL market for San Diego - meaning a force-fed helping of Chargers football by CBS at times when it appears there are contests of greater interest played elsewhere - it should be no surprise that, like it or not, we were subjected to watching Norv Turner's squad 14 times during the regular season.

But it paid off for L.A. affiliate KCBS-Channel 2, which had them on nine times from that Week 2 Ed Hochuli debacle at Denver to the Week 16 revival at Tampa Bay. KCBS had more viewers this season

(8.0 average rating) than it had for nine Chargers games in 2007 (7.1). In San Diego, viewership across all the networks for Chargers games also saw a jump - a 26.8 rating covering all 16 games, versus 26.0 a year ago.
Simms and Jim Nantz ended up calling three Chargers contests during the regular season, including that Nov. 16 game in Pittsburgh that had a KCBS-best NFL rating for '08 (11.2). But more telling perhaps were the broadcast teams assigned to Chargers' telecasts when it appeared during the season that no one anywhere else was interested.

There was Ian Eagle and Solomon Wilcots in Week 15 at Kansas City, a game Simms claimed to have watched. The Chargers somehow improved to 6-8, scoring 12 fourth-quarter points to beat the 2-12 Chiefs, 22-21, as Kansas City missed a 50-yard field goal at the end.

"I'll never forget ... (they are) losing and I said, 'Wow, what a disaster. I just can't believe how they fell apart,' ... then they came back and won," Simms said.

In Week 10, we were miffed CBS gave us San Diego-Kansas City with Gus Johnson and Steve Tasker vs. the Indianapolis-Pittsburgh game with Nantz and Simms. Five weeks earlier, CBS also had Johnson and Tasker calling the Chargers' game at Miami, while we were shut out of Tennessee-Baltimore - one of whom will be in the AFC title game next Sunday.

In Week 7, we even had to endure CBS' coverage (with Greg Gumbel and Dan Dierdorf) of the Chargers' game in Buffalo that was goofed up by a power outage in the city, which knocked out much of the first half.

NBC, which landed the Chargers' win at home against Indianapolis in last week's AFC wild-card game, had three regular-season San Diego games. It flexed twice on them - picking up their Week 17 regular-season finale against Denver that decided the AFC West title, but dumping Week 16's game at Tampa Bay (giving it back to CBS) so it could carry Carolina-N.Y. Giants.

ESPN (in Week 3, vs. the New York Jets) and the NFL Network (Week 14, vs. Oakland) also took the Chargers out of their routine with a Monday and Thursday telecast, respectively.

Fox, which had two Chargers telecasts because an NFC team was playing at San Diego during the season, passed on both opportunities to give the L.A. audience a viewing. On opening weekend, Carolina's 26-24 win on the last play of the game was replaced on Fox by glamour-team Dallas' methodic win over Cleveland. And in Week 13, Atlanta grinded out a 22-16 win that sent the Chargers to a 4-8 mark, yet Fox gave us the N.Y. Giants-Washington contest at 10 a.m.

Now, these Chargers that are called "Dangerous" on a Sports Illustrated cover this week can win Sunday and host the AFC title game on Jan. 18 if Baltimore knocks out Tennessee.

"Nothing surprises me," said Simms of that scenario.

That's where you and Simms probably differ.