My suicide watch extends another week. The Chargers are delivering on the predictions made on them in the preseason, taking down the defending Super Bowl champs on their way to a showdown with New England.

I can't recall a single talking head in the national media giving the Chargers a chance to win this game. And how even more miraculous the win seems to be with their top three offensive stars (Tomlinson, Gates, Rivers) on the sidelines for a good chunk of the game and the entire fourth quarter. At the end of the game the four guys running the CBS post-game show (James Brown, Dan Marino, Shannon Sharpe and Boomer Esiason) appeared as if they were presiding over a funeral. Either that or they just lost some serious money on the game.

Some things that I lived from the game:

• Philip Rivers is growing up as a player. Maybe not so much as a person as the jawing with the fans indicated, but it's now two weeks in a row that the opposing team has shut down the run, forcing Rivers to make plays and he has delivered.
• The Jackson and Chambers on the wideouts. Again.
• Winning with the scrubs. The game winning drive was won by these three last names -- Volek, Sproles, Nanee. Heard of them?

Two things I didn't like:

• We got beat up. LT went out early in the game with a bruised knee. Rivers injured his other knee (his left one being beat up already) and sat out the entire fourth quarter. Hopefully through the miracles of the best available health care on earth (and chemicals) they will be back on the field next week at full strength.
• Officiating. It always seems to happen against your team but, c'mon. A defensive holding play on a critical play when the defensive back barely touched the receiver, and another holding play when it probably should have been called on the other player -- also happening on a critical play, where Cromartie intercepts the Manning pass near the goal line at the end of the first half and returns it for a touchdown.

They've taken down the defending NFL champs, now they just need to take down NFL history to make it back to the big game.

Labels: chargers