He embodies the term old school. San Diego Chargers coach Marty Schottenheimer is not given to offensive frills or defensive frivolities, a guy who is drill-sergeant tough and expects his teams to reflect that no-nonsense approach.

So little wonder that in forging the NFL's best record at the quarter pole of the 2002 season, the Chargers have used a trite-and-true formula for success: Run the football on offense and stop the run defensively.

Led by second-year tailback and league leader LaDainian Tomlinson, the Chargers rank No. 1 in the NFL in rushing offense. And with a swarming defense, San Diego has limited opponents to just 77.3 yards per game, the third-best mark in the league. The Chargers' running game differential, at plus-104.8 yards per game, is monstrous.

	Tomlinson leads the league with 506 rushing yards.

In fact, quarterback Drew Brees threw only 18 times and completed but 10 passes in last Sunday's breakthrough victory over New England.

"The way that we play, it's like being a boxer and going consistently to the body," said Tomlinson, who had rushes of 24, 37 and 58 yards last week. "What's the old saying about kill the body and the head will die, too? We believe in that."

Apparently the rest of the teams in the AFC West are true believers, too.

What once was dubbed "The Wild, Wild West" -- when the division's teams threw the ball all over the lot and clubs required FAA clearance of stadium air space before every contest -- has evolved into a quartet that has adopted a back-to-the-future blueprint. Call it now "The Wily, Wily West," a division where coaches are savvy enough to retrench and de-evolve, because it is the best paradigm for assuring consistency.

The primer form: See the AFC West run. See the AFC West win. And win and win and win.

Even with the hammering that the Denver Broncos absorbed in Baltimore on Monday night, the AFC West has an aggregate 12-3 record through four weeks. That mark, along with the combined .800 winning percentage, is by far the best of any of the other seven divisions.

No other division has more than 10 wins or fewer than five defeats. The AFC West has only three fewer victories, for instance, than the AFC North, NFC West and NFC North combined. The AFC West has more road wins than the AFC North has victories, period.

In San Diego and Oakland, the AFC West features the lone two remaining undefeated teams in the league, and it is the only division that can boast that all four of its franchises currently own non-losing records. The last-place club in the division, Kansas City, ripped previously undefeated Miami last Sunday afternoon.

Such dominance is hardly new, of course. In a stretch from 1983 through 1997, the AFC West sent at least two teams to the playoffs in 11 of 15 seasons (winning the AFC's only two Super Bowls in that time). Four times in that period the division had three clubs that qualified for postseason play. Over the past four seasons, though, the AFC West three times sent only its division champion to the Super Bowl tourney.

The new fear this year, given the resurgence of the AFC West at the same time that Seattle was moved out of the division to the NFC West, is that one of its teams could be bumped from a playoff berth by a division champion with an inferior record. It's entirely conceivable, in a realigned NFL, that the top team in, say, the AFC North, could have a worse record than the last-place club in the AFC West. On the flip side, it's every bit as feasible that both of the AFC wild-card entries will come from the West.

	“	From top to bottom, it's as solid a division as it's ever been. Things are going to be very competitive. There are no 'gimmes' in this division, that's for sure, man. It's not the same kind of division, because teams aren't throwing the ball as much, but it's still a very aggressive division. ”
		— Raiders WR Tim Brown

Then again, there hasn't been a single intradivisional game played yet in the AFC West, a moratorium that ends on Sunday, when the Chargers travel to Denver. In the final 13 weeks of the season, there are just three weekends in which there is not at least one game between AFC West rivals. Essentially, the real fun begins now with the four teams starting to go head-to-head.

"From top to bottom," said Oakland wide receiver Tim Brown, "it's as solid a division as it's ever been. Things are going to be very competitive. There are no 'gimmes' in this division, that's for sure, man. It's not the same kind of division, because teams aren't throwing the ball as much, but it's still a very aggressive division."

One could make a case that Rich Gannon of Oakland is the only established standout quarterback in the AFC West, particularly given the off-field woes of Denver's Brian Griese. Kansas City's Trent Green had problems turning the ball over in 2001, and Brees is in his first season as a starter. But what the division lacks in fireworks these days it more than compensates for with basic fundamentals.

All four clubs have solid offensive lines, are strong upfront on defense and are capable of controlling tempo with the run. This is not by coincidence. In Oakland, new head coach Bill Callahan is a former offensive line assistant. Schottenheimer always wants to run the ball first. Denver has long had one of the league's premier ground games. Chiefs coach Dick Vermeil has always adapted to the talent on hand to create an identity mirroring the strength of his team.

This statistical anomaly certainly reflects the combined success of the AFC West: All four teams rank in the top nine in the NFL in rushing offense, with the Chargers leading the league. All four rate among the top 12 teams in rushing defense, and Oakland, Denver and San Diego are 1-2-3 in that critical category. Even the Chiefs, who are 31st in overall defense and who permitted more than 400 yards in each of their first three outings, are rated 12th in defense against the run.

"Let's face it," said Callahan, whose team has called pass plays on 63.7 percent of its snaps but still relies on the run for balance, "if you run well in this league, you usually win. And everyone in our division is running pretty effectively and doing a great job shutting down the opponent's run."

The result is that all four teams in the division rank among the top 12 in the league in average scoring per game. Kansas City has tallied 142 points, or more than Houston, Cincinnati and Baltimore combined.

Tomlinson is the NFL's leading rusher and Priest Holmes of Kansas City is third. Not surprisingly, the Chargers have run the ball on 57 percent of their plays. Kansas City has one of the NFL's most balanced offenses, with 127 pass plays and 125 runs.

For the old-timers who can recall a time not so long ago, when AFC West teams were at the forefront of ingenious passing-game designs, the move to more ground-based attacks seems anathema. For the four franchises in the NFL's premier division so far this year, however, the old adage run to win resonates truer than ever.

"Offensive lineman, we like being road graders, really," said Denver left tackle Ephraim Salaam. "The way we see it, we're carving out the road to wins, you know?"

Len Pasquarelli is a senior writer for ESPN.com.