Let’s call it for what it was: The Chargers choked.
No matter how much more talent, coaching or overall advantages one squad has over another, teams still have to show up ready to play for 60 minutes on game day.
There’s no way to describe what the Jets did to the Chargers today than to stating the obvious: They just flat out outplayed them in the second half. The Jets were better today and that’s why they’re heading to Indianapolis to take on the Colts in the AFC Championship Game next weekend.
But let’s not overlook the fact that the Chargers were the hottest team coming into the playoffs and they couldn’t even make it out of the Divisional Round. They hadn’t lost since a mid-October Monday night game against the Broncos and many people considered them the team to beat in the postseason.
So excuse me for not shrugging my shoulders and saying, “Ah well, the better team won in San Diego today.” It’s not that simple to just write off the Chargers’ loss as another game when everything was set up for them to make a deep postseason run.
The Bolts had home field advantage, were facing a rookie quarterback playing in only his second postseason game of his career and they had momentum after winning 11 straight games. They weren’t supposed to lose today – no matter how good Rex Ryan’s defense played – and the defeat was eerily similar to their 2007 Divisional Round loss to the Patriots after they finished 14-2 in the regular season.
The blame cannot fall on just one man’s shoulders; it took a complete team effort for the Chargers to lose today. Norv Turner’s game plan failed, the defense had trouble coming up with a big stop in the second half (especially on Shonn Greene’s 53-yard touchdown run), Philip Rivers turned the ball over twice (although one was a fluke) and the usually automatic Nate Kaeding missed three field goals, including two within 40 yards.
San Diego just didn’t execute today, which is why they’ll be at home come February when the Super Bowl is being played – the Super Bowl that many people figured they’d be playing in.
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The Chargers may have been the overall better team and certainly were the hotter team, but let’s not forget a couple of things:
1. They couldn’t stop the rush all year, and the Jets have a strong rushing game. That mismatch materialized on Sunday.
2. Norv Turner is a systematic choke artist. So much so that he actually holds weight against the Chargers with wise guys in Vegas. They will factor him into a line or a wager in a negative sense. It’s notable that wise guys don’t even treat Wade Phillips this way. Why? Because Turner returns season after season with a buttload of talent and can’t make it happen.
I’m not saying I put $500 bucks on the Jets with my account in Costa Rica but the line was *way too high* in the Chargers’ favor and, let’s face it, NFL fans have a short attention span and they counted the Jets out mostly because the Chargers were the latest and greatest thing. When, in reality, they shouldn’t have.
Dr. E,
I took the Jets! Loved the points in that match up, as well as the under.
But from a non-Costa Rica offline account standpoint, I think the Chargers still choked. That’s not to take anything away from the Jets because as you said, it was a great matchup for them and they took advantage of it. But Kaeding missed three field goals, Turner mismanaged things at the end and the Chargers didn’t capitalize early on when they were moving the ball well.