If this is end, Chargers left impression

This was like old times, perhaps for the last time.

The fans showed up. The team showed up.

When we needed it most — to demonstrate it, to feel it — San Diego represented.

“This is what it used to be like,” Antonio Gates said to Philip Rivers as the two Chargers stars stood on the sideline midway through the fourth quarter.

Rivers heard a “You can’t run” chant as he watched his team’s defense thwart another Miami Dolphins drive.

He had to blink away the tears, and through them he saw memories.

“I saw Jamal out there standing over the ball,” Rivers said, recalling dominant nose tackle Jamal Williams. “… Gosh, all the people who have been here.”

If this was it, if after 55 years, this was our final Sunday to gather and pour out adulation and receive gratification, everyone did it right.

“All week we said if this is our final game, let’s go out and give it our all,” Gates said as he walked toward the parking lot in the only home stadium he has known over 13 NFL seasons. “… All we know is that we had today, and we were able to go out and make the most of it.”

Yeah, we sure wouldn’t mind this team sticking around.

The Chargers built a huge halftime lead, and with a defense that may just be developing into something good, cruised to a 30-14 victory over the Dolphins.

It was a final act strikingly in contrast to how the season had played out. Six consecutive games were to some degree taken over by visiting fans. It was as embarrassing as it was justice.

But Sunday, if it had to be an ending, was pretty much perfect.

Dilapidated Qualcomm Stadium is rightfully oft-disparaged, but it can rival any game day atmosphere in the NFL. It has not done so very often in the past six years. Sunday, it did again. The Chargers did their part. Danny Woodhead caught three touchdown passes and ran for another score, becoming the first Charger since LaDainian Tomlinson in 2007 to score four TDs in a game. Gates had six catches for 88 yards. Rivers threw for 311 yards. The defense had a shutout going for almost 43 minutes.

The fans did their part. They got loud early and mostly stayed loud. Chargers players ran around with a verve they had not shown en masse all season. They pumped their fists and jumped into each other’s arms after big plays. They instigated the crowd. They made plays.

“I don’t think we got caught up in it,” Manti Te’o said of the emotion flowing through the stadium. “We used it to our betterment.”

If we weren’t so consumed by where the franchise is going, we’d have spent more time Sunday wondering where this team had been.

But the future of our love affair was clearly the theme — from the pregame tailgating until Eric Weddle was finished signing autographs more than an hour after the game.

Rivers told his teammates beforehand they needed to understand the Chargers have been in San Diego since long before any of them were born. Afterward, he was among the players who returned to the field to sign autographs for a crowd still a few thousand strong a half-hour after the game. They lined the entirety of the railing behind the Chargers bench. They cheered and chanted.

“The whole day was special,” a red-eyed Rivers said later. “Maybe we’ll get to trot back out there and play again. But it was the only way to treat it — as if it was the last time.”

Mike McCoy deserves praise for a classy move, removing Floyd, Gates and Rivers from the game with 30 seconds to play. A delay of game had cost the Chargers their final timeout, so McCoy told referee John Hussey what he wanted to do. Credit Hussey and his crew with stretching the play clock so the crowd could acknowledge the three longtime Chargers as they took what was possibly their final walk to the sideline of Jack Murphy Field.

At the end of the game, as veteran players signed autographs and fans chanted “Save our Bolts,” the stadium speakers blared “San Diego Super Chargers,” then “Stay a Little Bit Longer” and “Auld Lang Syne” in succession.

It was a poignant play list, especially since the franchise had all week purposely not acknowledged the possible finality of this day.

Perhaps one of the tunes should have been, “Can’t Buy Me Love.”

No matter what increase there is in the franchise’s value, whatever exponential revenue the Spanos family might realize, the Chargers will never be embraced in Los Angeles anywhere near how they have been here.

Sunday showed that once again.