By Edward Mauler

Editor-In-Chief

This Week In Football

 

New York Jets (10-7) at San Diego Chargers (13-3)

Sunday, Jan. 17, 2010

Qualcomm Stadium

4:40 p.m. EST

CBS

Series: Chargers lead 19-12-1

 

Let’s play a little game called hidden team for this AFC divisional round playoff tilt slated for sunny San Diego.

Team “A” is the NFL’s hottest entering the playoffs – a winner of 11 straight that averaged a proficient 28.4 points per game during the regular season.

Team “B” sports the league’s No. 1-ranked defense, which held opponents to a meager 252.3 total yards per game and a paltry 14.8 points per game.

Team “A” features a Pro Bowl quarterback who passed for 4,254 yards, 29 touchdowns and just nine interceptions. This same team’s tight end grabbed 79 passes for 1,157 yards and eight of those aforementioned 29 TD tosses, and will accompany his quarterback in Miami for this year’s Pro Bowl.

Team “B” struts onto the gridiron the NFL’s best cover corner, who nabbed six interceptions during the regular season, and finished second to Green Bay’s Charles Woodson in the Associated Press Defensive Player of the Year voting.

Ok. This could go on forever. But you should get the point. If you haven’t figured out which team is which, please pull your head out of the sand. The hidden team game wasn’t all that tricky.

San Diego is obviously Team “A” with its high-powered offense. Engineered by quarterback Philip Rivers, tight end Antonio Gates, and supplemented by the aging LaDainian Tomlinson at running back, the Chargers offensive attack is a potent as any in the league – even with LT’s struggles, as he rushed for less than 1,000 yards for the first time during his career, and the team averaged only 88.9 yards a game on the ground.

And so that leaves the New York Jets as Team “B”, with its stonewall of a defense, spearheaded by defensive guru and head coach Rex Ryan, and executed by Mr. Glue (cornerback Darrelle Revis), defensive end Shaun Ellis and inside linebacker Bart Scott.

So it’ll be a battle of will, might, fight, strength on strength. Whatever it shall be called. Because it’ll for darn sure be a heck of a match-up between a good offense and great defense.

And as the old saying goes, a great defense always beats a good offense. (And San Diego’s offense is just “good” and not “great.” Now New Orleans – that’s what you call a great offense.) And well, let’s go ahead and throw the other one out there: Defense wins championships.

But heave all of that hardcore football logic out the window, and into the depths of winter (except you Charger fans in San Diego, who are probably worried about getting sun burned as you read this preview on your BlackBerry while sprawed out on the beach).

Even though New York is the NFL’s best defensive team, it will not beat San Diego, in warm and pleasant San Diego.

Uh huh. Defense does not always conquer.

Especially when you take into consideration the fact the Jets start a rookie in Mark Sanchez behind center. Who has no big-time targets to flip the ball to. Unless, you consider Jerricho Cotchery (57 receptions and 821 receiving yards) and Braylon Edwards (35 and 541) the Rolls-Royce of wide receivers. If you do, please quit watching football.

So it’s inevitable. In a road playoff contest a rookie quarterback will falter. Even with a strong defense propping his team up.

Thomas Jones, the Jets’ unheralded running back, will become obsolete as Sanchez will get too wild, too careless, and be too brash on the heels of New York’s pseudo upset of the Cincinnati Bengals last week in Cincinnati.

Yes, a rookie signal caller can win a playoff game in the other team’s stadium. It just won’t happen this week.

And let’s not forget the “Jets lag” New York will endure, traveling the continental United States coast-to-coast for this one.

In the end, it’ll go down as a defensive struggle, with the more-experienced and better passer Rivers out-dueling the youngster Sanchez. However, it’ll be an epic game, with a late turnover by cover boy Sanchez ultimately dooming the J-E-T-S, Jets, Jets, Jets.

CHARGERS 17, JETS 14