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The San Diego Chargers will start the season short-handed at linebacker, a unit that generally is looked at as a team strength.

In addition to a less than full strength Shawne Merriman, who decided that he will play despite four doctors telling him he needs surgery to reconstruct two torn ligaments, the team will miss Stephen Cooper, who will serve a four-game suspension for violating the NFL’s banned stimulants policy.

The Chargers do have some depth. Derek Smith, a 12-year veteran, will step in for Cooper, who has said he ingested a banned substance through a nutritional supplement, according to the North County Times.

San Diego also catches a break, catching Carolina and the New York Jets at home while traveling to Denver and Oakland during the first month of the season. The Chargers should emerge from that quartet of games no worse than 2-2 and probably 3-1 or undefeated. But these losses make that fast start a tougher one to get.

With Osi Umenyiora out for the year with a knee injury, it’s possible that both participants in the 2002 slide-and-hug that resulted in a new single-season sack record might return from their respective “retirements” without missing a game.

Heck, Brett Favre and Michael Strahan could enjoy quiet dinners and whisper sweet nothings in each others’ ears on a more frequent basis, as Favre has now joined the New York Jets. The Giants contacted Strahan to see if he would be interested in returning to help plug the hole felt by Umenyiora’s loss.

According to media reports, Strahan’s agent, Tony Agnone, told the Associated Press he’ll talk to Strahan, who is currently on vacation in Greece. The two sides did no negotiating, said Agnone, who also represents Umenyiora.

Strahan turned down $6 million during the offseason, choosing instead to retire following the Giants’ Super Bowl win. He later signed to work with Fox Sports on its NFL pregame show.

Strahan, a 7-time Pro Bowl player, reportedly sent someone word that he would come back for $8 million. Favre, as might be expected, endorses the move.

Cincinnati coach Marvin Lewis said twice in the last month he was not interested in bringing wide receiver/jailbait Chris Henry back to the team but owner Mike Brown overruled Lewis, signing Henry to a two-year deal announced Tuesday.

“At the end of the day the owner has the final say-so whether or not he wants to give a guy an opportunity,” Lewis is quoted as saying in the Cincinnati Enquirer. “Mike has wanted to give Chris this opportunity, and asked we do the best job we can do to prepare him …”

So Marvin Lewis is now stuck with a guy he doesn’t want on a team he apparently doesn’t have the authority to run as he sees fit. It’s being speculated in various media accounts throughout the Web that this might be the issue that ultimately splits Lewis and the Bengals. It’d be hard to blame the coach, who already reportedly was on the hot seat, for leaving the team, which he appeared a few years ago to be pulling out of  decades of dysfunction.

But since drafting David Pollack, whose career ended due to a neck injury, Henry, and Odell Thurman, a stud linebacker who was cut this offseason after having almost as many run-ins with the law as Henry, in 2005, this team has slowly spiraled downhill again.

It’s the guess here that the Bengals tumble further this season and Lewis takes a walk at the end of the season - if he makes it that far - and that this team heads back into the abyss for another extended period of bad, losing football.

Four months ago it looked as though the Cincinnati Bengals might be ready to make a point. After five arrests, the last one coming when he allegedly pummeled a University of Cincinnati student, breaking his car window with a beer bottle.

A jury couldn’t come to a decision on that case but the Bengals did. Enough was enough. They were moving on, releasing the thug and selecting three wide receivers in the April draft.

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Steven Jackson has held out for 22 days now missing two of his team’s preseason games. He’s seeking a new contract as he heads into his fifth season.

On its face, perhaps he’s earned it. He’s had three 1,000 yard seasons and scored 36 touchdowns in his career. But has he truly earned the right to hold out in hopes of scoring his big payday?

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