Tennessee Titans V San Diego Chargers

This should be the best game of the weekend in the wild card series. You have the Titans that it seems have had to struggle to get some wins and struggle in some of its losses versus a team that was dysfunctional and everyone questioned the firing of Marty and the hiring of Norv Turner. Lets face reality here the Chargers were as dysfunctional as the Manson family without the killer instinct and many wanted Norv run out of town with the hopes he would take the general manager with him.

The Titans are sporting a 10-6 regular season record coming into this game with already having lost to the Chargers in OT on December 9th. What have the Titans achieved this year in the way of quality wins? Well they split their series with the Colt and Jaguars with a 2-2 record. In the first game they won by three which so happened to be the first game of the year but in the second contest it was not as close with the Jag's getting a decisive win. Against the Colts both of those games were closer than some had expected but frankly the Titans have always played the Colts tough. Unfortunately for the Titans they have run into some bad luck recently with some injuries they can ill afford but they also have that trump card in Coach Fisher. He always finds a way to upset the other team with getting his players ready for the big games. Frankly he is one of the best coaches in the NFL even though he has not had teams with loads of talent but teams with sparkles of talent that over shadowed the rest.

The Chargers come into this contest with an 11-5 record and looked completely dysfunctional, discombobulated, left for dead after the first 5 weeks of the season with loses to the Patriots, Packers and Chiefs. I can understand loses to the Packers and Patriots but the Chiefs loss is one I cannot fathom because it's Herm Edwards. Let's face it he is not in the class of many but maybe more in the class of Les Steckle as a head coach. While colorful in his news conferences that excite the press with sound bites he is not a winner. It took the Chargers a while to figure out they had the premiere running back in the NFL and used him sparingly early in the season and tried to put the games on the shoulders of Phillip Rivers. While I like the QB and he will prove to be one of the NFL's better QB as time progresses he simply cannot carry the load yet.

When you look at these teams they are fairly evenly matched statistically but statisticians do not play the games.  The most dangerous offense is the Chargers just because of Tomlinson and the play action. Rivers has been okay in passing as long as he does not push his passes in tight coverage. He then has the tendency to get picked easily with 15 on the year. But his counterpart Young with the Titans is more effective running the ball than passing and he continues to show rookie mistakes and being impatient allowing his passes to hit the receivers in the "windows" and taking off running. That makes a team one dimensional and can be easier to defend as long as the dbacks and line-backers can maintain their coverage's and gaps.

Talent wise it is almost a push with an edge going toward the Chargers but the monkey wrench in all this for the Chargers is Jeff Fisher the Titans head coach. Fisher is the better coach and has a proven record in the post season. Turner's record in the post season is not impressive even when he has the talent advantage. You just never what is going on in the head of Jeff Fisher and what he has schemed and his players respond well to him. So who is going to win this one?

I will pick the Chargers because of the talent edge, home field and because of the events of last years loss still stings I am sure.