This time, the unthinkable is thinkable.

On Sunday, the Chargers appear in their Second Annual Farewell Bowl. As in 2015, the 2016 season ends with the team’s owners mulling a move to Los Angeles (again) after failing to close the deal on a new San Diego stadium (again).

At last year’s final home game, fans lavished affection on the Chargers. After cheering a 30-14 trouncing of the Dolphins, thousands lingered in Qualcomm Stadium, unwilling to leave their beloved Bolts.

But now? “The mood has changed,” said county Supervisor Dianne Jacob, who this year dropped the season tickets she had inherited from her father. Like many others, she’s had it.


“The attitude that I’ve picked up from my constituents is, ‘I am done with them,’” Jacob said.

Boltman, or Dan Jauregui, fires up supporters for Measure C, the measure for the downtown San Diego Chargers stadium, in this file photo. (Hayne Palmour IV/U-T )

Even among the most upbeat, hope is fading. “I like to remain optimistic,” said Dan Jauregui who, as “Boltman,” is a familiar sight at Qualcomm. “But it’s very unlikely they will stay.”

There are still die-hard loyalists — Jauregui is one — who will root for this team wherever they go. And that’s if they go. Dean Spanos, team president and CEO, has said he will announce his decision after the 2016 season. That means sometime between the final whistle at Sunday’s Chargers-Chiefs game and Jan. 15, when the team’s option to relocate to L.A. expires.


Fans already are bracing for the worst. Life without the Chargers would bring change to San Diego’s shopping malls and churches, police stations and charities.

With so many locals calling themselves Charger fans, we may also see increased Kleenex sales.

“I’ve already told my wife and kids,” said North Park’s David Roth, owner of a digital marketing agency and self-described “hopeless” Chargers fan. “I’m going to be really sad if they move.”

After the breakup

If the Chargers leave, will San Diegans be sad? Relieved? Incensed?


For a preview of coming distractions, visit the Midwest. When the Rams traded St. Louis for Los Angeles after the 2015 season, Missouri fans responded in predictable fashion.

“There’s the first part, the anger against the team, anger that decades of loyalty are repaid with a move,” said Michael MacCambridge, author of “America’s Game: The Epic Story of How Pro Football Captured a Nation.”

This fury is exacerbated by wounded pride. “There’s an undeniable, and perhaps unjust, loss of prestige,” said MacCambridge, a former St. Louis resident.

Soon, anger gives way to a perverse pleasure whenever the departed team stumbles. A former St. Louis Rams hangout now offers discounted lunches after a Los Angeles Rams loss.


Eventually, emotions cool and jilted fans pursue NFL-free interests. With its wealth of non-football leisure activities, San Diego would be well positioned to move on.

“Think about sitting on the beach in Encinitas, or take a glider ride at Torrey Pines, or golfing, or going to the zoo or enjoying an extra long brunch at Snooze,” said James Bafaro, a former radio reporter who covered the 1988 move of St. Louis’ earlier NFL franchise, the Cardinals, to Phoenix.

“You’ll be fine,” he insisted. “Trust me. We’ve been there.”

Those who take the long view also note that the NFL often returns to its abandoned cities. Baltimore lost the Colts and gained the Ravens. Houston lost the Oilers, gained the Texans. And so on.


Yet MacCambridge warned that this is neither inevitable nor inexpensive.

“If it would cost X to keep the Chargers in San Diego in 2017,” he said, “it will cost X plus Y to get another team in 2020 or later.

“And Y is a large number.”

Gains and losses

If the Chargers leave town, Sports Fever may be thrown for a loss. The Westfield Mission Valley mall store peddles jerseys, ballcaps, jackets and other items, most of them emblazoned with Chargers’ blue and gold.


“Probably 50, 60 percent of our business has to do with the Chargers,” said Jared Bremseth, the store manager. “We are so close to the stadium, if there is no football it would definitely hinder our business.”

Amelia Yeh of Ocean Beach looks at a Chargers-themed clock while visiting the Sports Fever store in the Westfield Mission Valley mall. The majority of their business is related to the Chargers. (Howard Lipin/U-T )

Other nearby merchants seem less concerned. McGregor’s Grill & Ale House is only a long Philip Rivers’ pass from Qualcomm Stadium. Yet managing partner Ian Linekin notes there are only 10 home games a year — two preseason and eight regular season.

“If anybody bases their business on 10 days of the year,” Linekin said, “they should come up with a new business plan.”


Still, game days are busy. But if the Chargers leave town, McGregor’s will continue to draw fans of the Chicago Bears, New York Jets, Seattle Seahawks ...

“San Diego is quite the melting pot,” Linekin said. “They are rooting for just about anybody on a Sunday morning.”

If San Diego loses the Chargers, some say the region will gain a matchless opportunity: reinventing Qualcomm Stadium’s 166 acres.

Like other advocates of this move, Jacob imagines the site hosting San Diego State University housing and an Aztecs football stadium; a soccer or hockey arena; a San Diego River park; restaurants and theaters.


This vision resembles an attraction 100 miles north of Mission Valley: Staples Center.

“I hate to borrow ideas from Los Angeles,” she said, “but we don’t have anything like that in San Diego. And where else do we have 160 acres of prime land that is central for the entire region?”

Memories

There are other possibilities for this plot of land, other options for our Sunday afternoons. Nina Tarantino suspects none of these alternatives would fill a Chargers-shaped hole in her heart.

“That’s my time with my dad,” she said of home games at Qualcomm Stadium.


Now 33, Tarantino grew up in a Charger household. Her father, Anthony Tarantino, has had season tickets for as long as his daughter can remember. While a winning team would be nice, this family sees that as secondary.

“It’s the memories that we make,” Nina Tarantino said. “I had a daughter this year and it makes me sad that, potentially, she’ll never get to have what I had.”

She can’t see herself rooting for the Los Angeles Chargers. Neither can Chris Reed, another lifelong Bolts fan, even though he lives in L.A.

“It’s complicated,” he said, “but they are the San Diego Chargers.”


Reed, 32, grew up in San Diego and moved to L.A. to pursue an acting career. (He was the late “Filthy Phil” on the FX series “Sons of Anarchy.”)

Even after moving north, he cheered for the Chargers in good times (the ‘94 AFC championship season) and bad (2000’s crushing 1-15 campaign).

“I watched it all,” he said.

Now, he wonders if he’ll ever watch again. He’s disillusioned by the franchise’s ownership, no matter where the franchise is headquartered.


He blames the Spanos family for the impasse with San Diego City Hall. “To see how the Chargers have behaved makes me not want to be a fan of the organization,” Reed said.

“Boltman” disagrees. “Dean has shown good faith, attempting to stay in San Diego,” Jauregui said. But November’s Measure C, the Chargers-crafted proposal to use increased hotel taxes to help cover the cost of a new $1.8 billion convention center/stadium, received less than 44 percent of the vote.

“He made his best effort to stay in San Diego,” Jauregui said, “but the taxpayers have spoken and they said no.”

If the team leaves, Boltman said, fans’ vows to ignore the Chargers will last only as long as the team loses.


“When you start winning,” he said, “the fans show up.”

Intangibles

Here’s a wish from the Make-A-Wish Foundation: may the Chargers stay in San Diego, where the team has been a steady backer of this charity.

“We are truly grateful for the longtime support of the San Diego Chargers,” said Chris Sichel, president and CEO of Make-A-Wish San Diego. “From Chargers players and coaches to the front office staff, the team has welcomed Make-A-Wish families from all over the country, treating them to once-in-a-lifetime wish experiences.”

In the team’s history, it has donated more than $500,000 to the Make-A-Wish Foundation, and also supplied autographed footballs and other items for the charity’s auctions.


In 2014, the last year for which public records are available, the team’s philanthropic arm made grants of $374,466.

While Make-A-Wish was a regular recipient, San Diego Chargers Charities have given much more to schools.

In 2014, when Make-A-Wish received $38,000, six county schools received a total of $259,000. (An additional $35,000 went to Holtville High School in Imperial County.)

A team’s community impact is not limited to dollars and cents. Chargers visit patients at Rady Children’s Hospital, serve Thanksgiving dinners in homeless shelters, buy school supplies for disadvantaged students.


There are some darker intangibles, too. A 2009 study by economists from UC Berkeley and UC San Diego found that NFL cities see an increase in domestic violence after the home team suffers an upset loss.

There’s no guarantee, though, that the loss of an NFL team will mean fewer battered spouses and partners.

“The key for whether domestic violence would decline or rise is what activity would take the place of watching football,” said Gordon Dahl, the study’s UC San Diego co-author. “If the substitute activity is less violence prone, domestic violence could fall. (And if it is more violence prone, domestic violence could rise.)”

Crime is also an issue at Qualcomm Stadium. According to an analysis by The Washington Post, Charger fans led the league in arrests between 2011 and 2015, averaging 24.6 per home game, outpacing the New York Giants (22.5), New York Jets (21.5) and Oakland Raiders (17.8).


(In contrast, Charger players are relatively law-abiding. A USA Today database of NFL player arrests shows that from 2010 through 2016, five Chargers had been arrested, with none in the past three years.)

Perhaps only God knows where the Chargers will play next season. Those seeking the Almighty’s guidance may want to visit Mission Valley’s First United Methodist Church, just a few miles from the Q.

“On Charger Sundays, we often have a bigger crowd at our 8 a.m. service and smaller crowds at the 9:30 and 11,” said Demmie Divine, administrative assistant to pastor Craig Brown.

That’s not to say the 8 a.m. service is standing room only.


“Whenever we have a Charger game,” Divine said, “attendance is down.”