The Chargers have had numerous injuries to key personnel and a 4 game suspension to overcome. That has affected their performance at times. But when you look at how they've performed when healthy (like they are now), they have been dominant. In the games where we've had all 11 on defense healthy (like we do now) the Bolts have given up an average of 10 points per game.
Further, alot of the points we have given up in the last half of the season were in garbage time. If you look at how we played when the game was close, you'll see that our defense has been great.
Welcome Guest, I understand and applaud your enthusiasm for your team after a terrific season, but remember where you are when you post your comments out here. We weren't born yesterday when it comes to the NFL or to the Playoffs, with which we have just a tiny little bit of experience over the past few seasons. And, any injury argument just isn't going to cut it out here either. Remember the Pats are a team that won over 20 games in a bleeping row with an infirmary full of starters.
Of course, your defense "has been great." Well, duh, you went 14--2 in the AFC. It had to be great.
Now, we're talking about the Playoffs and how that defense and the rest of the team might function under very different circumstances. It's more than fair to scrutinize a team's performance and ask if there are signs of weakness on an otherwise stellar 2006 resume.
For example, in points allowed this year, the Chargers were seventh, the Patriots were second. That's a fact. Seventh is awesome, second is just a tad more awesome. In fact if you look at the last 20 years of SB History, that statistic alone is the only one that correlates with a ridiculously high R2 to SB success. In fact, no team that didn't rank in the top ten by this metric has ever won a Superbowl. The last five teams to win the Superbowl have ranked as follows by the measure: PIT,T3; NEP T2; NEP 1; TAM, 1; NEP, 6. Something to think about. The remaining teams in the Playoffs this year rank as follows: BAL 1, NEP 2, CHI 3, (NYJ 6,) SDC 7, NOS 13, PHL T15, SEA 19, IND 23.
Does this mean that we're gonna beat you on Sunday? Nope, it doesn't. In fact the smart money is taking the spread as of this afternoon. It just means that Sunday is going to be interesting.
The other thing you shouldn't underestimate is how tuff this team is. Did you see BB maul a photographer to get to Eric after the game yesterday? Did you see Wilfork throw Pennington to the ground in the first half? One thing I can promise you. Win or lose on Sunday, the bolts are going to know they were in a football game.
