Time is running out on the San Diego Chargers. The franchise, which has never won a Super Bowl and has not been to the Big Game in more than 20 years, is under enormous pressure to win big and win immediately.

Firstly, there is a very real chance this will be the final season the team plays in San Diego. There are opportunities arising all over the Los Angeles market and the Chargers — who can break their lease after the season with a buyout of around $10 million —  are giving them serious consideration after spending the last 14 yards trying to find a stadium solution in San Diego County.

The Chargers claim 25 percent of their ticket base originates from Los Angeles, which could prove crippling if the Chargers stay put and the Rams and/or Raiders move back to the nation’s second biggest media market and swipe most of those fan dollars.

San Diego Mayor Kevin Faulconer recently appointed a nine-member stadium advisory group to help come up with solutions to prevent relocation, but the Chargers do not sound too optimistic.

Mark Fabiani, the team’s point person on the stadium issue, said the Chargers “have no intention of quietly participating in any effort to provide political cover for elected officials. … Simply put, we have no intention of allowing the Chargers franchise to be manipulated for political cover — and we will call out any elected official who tries to do so.”

All of this means if the Chargers are ever going to bring a Super Bowl to the city of San Diego, it will likely have to happen this season.

The sense of urgency in America’s Finest City is tied to more than the stadium issue.

Chargers fans are sick of seeing the team’s best players walk away with no rings on their fingers. The team lost a couple more cornerstone players to retirement this offseason — center Nick Hardwick and guard/tackle Jeromey Clary — adding their names to the list of franchise mainstays whose Super Bowl aspirations went unfulfilled.

If the Chargers do not win Super Bowl 50, a few more big names could be added as well. Antonio Gates enters the final year of his contract and will be 35 by the time the 2015 season begins. Also entering the final years of their contracts are Philip Rivers, Eric Weddle and Malcom Floyd. Rivers will be no doubt be extended — likely before the start of training camp — but everyone’s else future is far less certain.

Gates, Rivers, Weddle and Floyd have spent a combined 40 seasons in lightning bolts.

“Obviously, I play to win a Super Bowl,” Weddle said. “I play for my teammates and the organization. I just hope we don’t waste the guys we have on this team and [management gives] us a shot to win the Super Bowl.”

This is where things get interesting. GM Tom Telesco, in his third year at the helm, finally has a chance to aggressively upgrade his roster this offseason. He was handicapped in each of the last two offseasons thanks to some terrible contracts handed out by his predecessor, A.J. Smith (Jared Gaither and Robert Meachem’s deals were particularly burdensome).

Telesco has done well in the draft. He has executed six first- or second-day selections and all six of those players are penciled into starting roles in 2015. He has been more hit-or-miss in free agency, with the signings of Derek Cox (2013) and Donald Brown (2014) representing his biggest whiffs. He will have to do better with his additional cap space this offseason ($24.8 million) to lift the Chargers from fringe playoff contenders to legitimate Super Bowl challengers.

Can the Chargers land a big-time free agent like DeMarco Murray (Dallas), OT Bryan Bulaga (Green Bay) or OLB Jason Worilds (Pittsburgh)? If so, it would not only help on the field, but it would send a message to the locker room that the team is serious about competing for a championship this season.

The clock is ticking and the Chargers must respond with a sense of urgency. If the team wants to give the city of San Diego its first professional sports championship (sorry, Sockers, you don’t count); if it wants to see its cornerstone players rewarded with a Lombardi Trophy; and if it wants to shake its reputation as a perpetual bridesmaid, it has to happen this season.

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