I hate having to predict this game. On the one hand, I'm that guy who's been screaming for years that "I never bet against a proven, veteran team, at home, with it's back to the wall". That exactly describes the Chargers today. If they win today, there's a very realistic probability that they finish at 10-6, and figure into the tiebreakers somehow for a playoff berth.
If they lose, they're done. The best they could do is 9-7, and both the raiders and Chiefs would hold tiebreaker edge over them. So to say this is a "must win" for the Chargers, certainly is an accurate statement.
On the other hand ... every year, we see some really long-term talented team slide back to the pack, the beginning of the end of it's run, don't we? Last year we kept waiting for the Steelers to put it together. They never did. The year before, surely the Giants can't miss the playoffs after opening 5-0 can they? (They did). Is this year's slide back team the Chargers?
Third, if you go back and analyze the 2001 Patriots season (and believe me, I have), you'll see that the turning point of their season ... was a beatdown by the Rams in Foxboro on a Sunday night in mid November. The Rams rolled in, out-muscled the Pats, emerged a solid winner, en route to their second Super Bowl in three years. The Pats ... never lost again after that defeat.
Is it possible our beat-down at fake mile high, was the wake-up moment of the season?
I know Matt Cassel is out today. I know a lot of fans, media, and critics are fearful and/or outright frightened out of their minds about Brodie Croyle starting today. To which I say this -- do you really think Todd Haley, an outstanding offensive mind and someone who knows talent on that side of the ball when he sees it, you think Haley keeps Brodie around if he thinks he can't step in and win a game when needed? Haley (and his boss Scott Pioli) have run off everyone they didn't care for from the Carl years. They've kept very few players from that era, and the ones they have kept, have responded to the challenge magnificently. (Hali, DJ, Charles, D Bowe, Waters, Flowers). Do you really think Haley and Pioli wouldn't have upgraded the backup QB position if they felt Brodie would fail every time he took the field?
Furthermore, if anyone can coach Brodie Croyle into delivering a 23-30, 310 yds, 3 TD, 0 INT performance today, isn't it Chuck Weis? As I noted to Wayne, our bowling league manager and the head of parking at the gate we enter for Chiefs games, "it's not like Charlie Weis has won a Super Bowl playing a 2nd year 6th round pick from Michigan nobody had heard of". I was being sarcastic of course -- Weis has done that. He also somehow made two BCS bowls with Brady Quinn under center -- you know, the guy who couldn't get on the field in Cleveland, and is third string behind a rookie in denver that at least half the people who follow the game thinks will never start a game, in tim tebow. That guy. Weis won with him.
So as Chiefs fans, you can go one of two ways. Accept what 95% of the media and the message boards think will happen, and brace for a crushing defeat ...
Or choose to believe that today, in San Diego, with potentially the playoffs, the division, a home playoff game, on the line, you can choose to believe as I do.
Today is going to be the Chiefs finest hour.
I believe in this team. I believe in this coaching staff. I believe we have yet to see the best this team has to offer. Today, we're going to get it. There's no pressure on the Chiefs. A win is gravy. A loss is expected. All the pressure is on San Diego. It's a must-win in every sense of the phrase for the Chargers.
And if you asked me who I trust more with pressure on their shoulders, Norv Turner or Brodie Croyle with the league's best rushing attack to back him up ... give me Brodie every time. There's no "I" in "team", but there sure as all hell is an "I" in "victory", which is what the Chiefs are coming home with this evening.
Chiefs 31, at Chargers 17.
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