Bad news for Patriot fans: \nThey won\u2019t be facing the Houston Texans next week.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Good news for Patriot fans: \nThey won\u2019t be facing the Baltimore Ravens, either.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Patriots badly likely wanted the Texans next week in the Divisional Round game next Sunday at Gillette Stadium.\u00a0 The Patriots have never lost to Houston at home, regular or postseason.\u00a0 But the Texans showed why they were the best opponent for the Patriots Saturday at NRG Stadium, as they fell meekly to the six-seed Indianapolis Colts, 21-7.\u00a0 The Colts head to Kansas City next Saturday to take on the top seeded Chiefs, and the winner of Sunday\u2019s other Wild Card game would go to Foxborough next week.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
As the road team won on Saturday, so did the road team win\nSunday. Avenging a pre-Christmas home\nloss, the Los Angeles Chargers went into M&T Bank Stadium in Baltimore and\nput down the Ravens, 23-17. The Chargers\njumped out to a big lead against a mistake-prone Lamar Jackson, and were able\nto withstand a late charge by the Ravens despite John Harbaugh\u2019s refusal to\nreplace Jackson with former Super Bowl MVP Joe Flacco.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So, instead of a team with a good history of winning at Gillette Stadium in the postseason, it\u2019s the Chargers who come to Foxborough this Sunday.\u00a0 Both the Chargers and Patriots finished the regular season 11-5, but the Patriots are the higher seed because they won their division whereas Los Angeles lost a divisional tiebreaker with Kansas City and are the five seed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Patriots have a better history with the Chargers, both\nin the regular season and the playoffs. The\nPatriots are 22-14-2 against the Chargers all time, but most of the Charger wins\nagainst the Patriots came in the AFL days when the Chargers were in San Diego\nand the Patriots were in Boston. The\nPatriots won ten straight games against the Bolts from 1973 to 2001, and the\nPatriots have currently won seven of the last eight meetings between the two\nteams, including four straight at present.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In the postseason, the Patriots are 2-1 against the\nChargers, with all three games coming in different locations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The only postseason win by the Chargers over the Patriots\nwas a long time ago, in the 1963 AFL Championship Game at Balboa Stadium on the\ncampus of San Diego High School. Keith Lincoln\nhad 329 yards from scrimmage including 206 rushing yards, two touchdowns, and\nthe Chargers bludgeoned the Patriots, 51-10. \nThe 1963 Chargers sent a challenge to the then-NFL champion Chicago\nBears for a one-game playoff, and told them to name the time and place and use\nthe official NFL ball. George Halas and\nthe Bears denied the challenge, and there are several observers from back then\nwho think the Chargers would have won that game and have become the New York\nJets five years early.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The next postseason meeting between these teams was a 24-21 win\nby the Patriots at Qualcomm Stadium in San Diego in 2006. This game remains to this day the last time\nthe Patriots won a road postseason game. \nStephen Gostkowski kicked the game-winning field goal, which helped\nPatriot Nation forget all about the recently departed Adam Vinatieri, for the\nmoment. But this game is best remembered\nfor the fourth quarter interception of Tom Brady by Marlon McCree, but Troy\nBrown stripped McCree of the ball and recovered the fumble. This led to Brady hitting Reche Caldwell for\na four-yard touchdown pass to tie the game at 21-21 just prior to Gostkowski\u2019s\ngame winner. The Chargers were the top\nplayoff seed in the AFC that year, and both McCree and then-head coach Marty\nSchottenheimer have never been able to live down this loss to this day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The teams met the following season, as the 17-0 Patriots met\nthe Chargers on a gloomy Sunday afternoon at Gillette Stadium. The Patriots earned their 18th<\/sup> and\nfinal victory of the season, with a 21-12 win over the injury-depleted\nChargers. Injured LaDanian Tomlinson\nspent most of the game sulking on the sideline wrapped in a parka, and both Philip\nRivers and Antonio Gates were also nursing injuries. The Patriots advanced to Super Bowl XLII with\nthe win, but saw their chance at a perfect season go up in smoke in Arizona two\nweeks later against the Giants.<\/p>\n\n\n\n As mistake prone as the Ravens were on Sunday, the Chargers\nwere also. Leading 23-3 in the fourth\nquarter, the Chargers let the Ravens back into the game with some bad defense, allowing\nJackson to get some confidence and hitting some long gainers. Jackson hit Eric Crabtree with two touchdown\npasses in the fourth quarter to make the game close, but the Ravens fumbled the\nball four times, the last of which by Jackson late in the game sealed the\nissue. The Chargers did a good job of\nflustering the rookie quarterback out of Louisville, but in the end Jackson never\nshould have been in a position to snitch a win late in the game.<\/p>\n\n\n\n If the Chargers do not put away the Patriots if they have a\nchance next week, Brady won\u2019t be as forgiving as Jackson and the Ravens.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Chargers present a formidable opponent, but the Patriots\nperhaps stand a better chance of dealing with them than the Ravens\u2019\ndefense. The Chargers were a terrific\nroad team in 2018, going 7-1 on the road with the only loss against the cross-town\nrival Rams at the Coliseum. All year\nlong, the San Diego expatriates played their home games at StubHub Center\n(since renamed Dignity Health Sports Park) in the LA suburb of Carson, the home\nof MLS\u2019 Los Angeles Galaxy. The very\nsmall stadium is a magnet for visiting fans, so their home games are also\nvirtual road games. Like the Ravens, the\nChargers won\u2019t be afraid to play the Patriots on the road.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But the Ravens have a history of parlaying that lack of fear\ninto playoff wins. The Ravens are 2-2 at\nGillette Stadium in the postseason, and should have been 3-1 but for a missed chip\nshot field goal. The Chargers do not\nhave this sort of history or expectations. \nHouston would still have been a better opponent. But the Patriots instead get an opponent\nwithout a long history of postseason success, and a team still looking for its\nfirst Super Bowl win.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The biggest challenge for Bill Belichick will be how to deal\nwith the powerful Charger defense. Under\ndefensive coordinator\/former Jacksonville head coach Gus Bradley, the Charger\ndefense ranked ninth in the league against the run, pass and overall. The Patriot offense will be largely healthy\nheading into this game, and one has to wonder if Rob Gronkowski will finally\nget the protective blanket taken off him and be allowed to do what he normally\ndoes. Chances are that the Patriot\nrushing attack, good in recent weeks, will not be what takes the Patriots to\nthe AFC Championship Game.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Whatever the case, the Patriots need to win, hope that the\nColts upset the Chiefs out in Missouri, and then play host for still another\nAFC Championship Game.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In any case, it\u2019s not Houston, but it\u2019s not Baltimore. One more week, and it\u2019s playoff time once\nagain on the Boston Post Road.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Bad news for Patriot fans: They won\u2019t be facing the Houston Texans next week. Good news for Patriot fans: They won\u2019t be facing the Baltimore Ravens, either.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":20576,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-21276","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n