We sure caught a bunk crew of replacement officials last night. Ran into one veteran Viking a couple of hours after the game and he said "It's the worst officiating I have seen since I played high school football. Unacceptable."

They kept spotting the ball in the wrong spot, seemed to be guessing a fair amount and were flat embarrassing on LEX HILLIARD'S fumble and CHRISTIAN'S interception. Those were easy turnovers to call and they whiffed both times. San Diego coach NORV TURNER looked like he was going to blow a fuse at one point he was so frustrated.

They were guessing. I never have seen NFL refs guess at calls for the duration of a game. We now have seen these replacements three games and there have been some memorable moments -- one guy called a snap infraction on a guard, gave a team a 10-yard penalty on a defensive-holding call (it should be five yards) and called for a touchback when a guy signaled for a fair catch at the four yard line.

I have been fair to the guys because they are in a difficult spot but after last night finally have realized how overmatched they are. The NFL and the locked out officials have to cut a deal before the regular season or the players are going to go crazy. The porous officiating was the big talker amongst the players in the locker room following the loss to San Diego.

As for the game, we were far more sloppy offensively than I expected and couldn't get around San Diego's 3-4 defense. Ponder seemed more confused than composed and didn't play with the zest with which he performed the week before against Buffalo. I am not too concerned because he missed JEROME SIMPSON, who didn't play due to the fact he'll miss the first three games of the season due to suspension.

We need the regular season to begin so we can start formulating big opinions. So far Ponder has looked good against San Francisco, great against Buffalo and below average versus San Diego. He won't play Thursday at Houston and will get ADRIAN PETERSON and TE JOHN CARLSON for the Jacksonville game. I still firmly believe we win that game and follow it up with a win at Indy. No change to the plan off the slop fest last night at MOA Field.

The defense was facing a depleted San Diego offense and mostly dominated the action. We killed their offensive line when it mattered, and JARED ALLEN looked like the 22-sack guy he is. MLB JASPER BRINKLEY had a couple of sacks and played by far his best game of the preseason.

But, again, no all-in opinions on the performance because the Chargers were down three starters on the OL, PHILIP RIVERS, ANTONIO GATES, EDDIE ROYAL and RYAN MATHEWS. We were supposed to hold them to a couple of field goals and did.

It's time to cut this bad boy down and establish the 53 to lead us into the regular season and see what happens from there. PERCY HARVIN and KYLE RUDOLPH will be bigger factors than tey were last night, and Harvin catches that long one he dropped nine of 10 times. We are ready to go for the regulaqr season, despite what we witnessed last evening.