There is no spoon.  There is no Dana, only Zuul.

Zen.

Today is the day.  It is a gorgeous day in San Diego, not a cloud in the sky.  But over yonder there is trouble brewing.  But we in San Diego get blue skies because this is our year. 

I hate to say this is public as I always would rather keep these things to myself.  But everything that we needed to happen to us this season has happened.  We won four in a row to get to the playoffs.  The broncos lost 3 in a row to lose the AFC West title.  The Ravens have won twice in the playoffs giving us a potential home game next week.   We needed help and then some for this moment to come to pass.  And now we stand on the precipice.   None of this has been easy and it makes them better players and us better fans.  Last week at the stadium was out of control because everyone understood how important every play was.  Everyone started to believe we could do this.

I am a huge fan of Italian soccer.  When we won the world cup a couple years back there were a couple matches where I was nervous and quite.  My sister was living in Italy and would call me during the game to remind me that this is our year.  This might just be our year, too.

Yesterday, I got that feeling from watching the Ravens at halftime.  There way no way they were going to lose.  They just had to win.  The Chargers just have to win.  Why?  The Ravens didn’t believe anyone who told then anything except “you are going to win” and neither do we.  There is no spoon.  There is no Dana, only Zuul.  If someone asks you if you are a god you say “yes!”  See where this is going?

On to today’s game:  I expect the Chargers to play deliberate football.  Rivers doing his check-downs and lots of small yardage passes to keep the Steelers honest and a few long bombs to keep them guessing.  The Steelers like to do their “zone blitz.”  This allows their defense to confuse us but it allows something I think we can exploit.  If they zone blitz, that can be very effective against the screens I expect to see the whole game.  So why do I still expect to see many screens to Sproles, et al?  The zone blitz is particularly vulnerable if Rivers can complete the pass.  You can’t have linemen trying to cover Sproles.  Expect to see a lot of quick passes and screens from Rivers.

I expect the Steelers to have a similar game plan as the Chargers.  Big Ben is in a world of hurt.  He’s playing through it but he won’t be as mobile and he will be looking to avoid contact.  He will do his check-downs and just try to grind out yards.  Look for us to blitz more often than usual for and Ron Rivera (boricua) to disguise the blitzes very well.  We are not a team that pressures the quarterback a lot this season.  But Big Ben loves to hold the ball and take the sack.  Since he doesn’t want to get hit look for him to make some bad throws and for the Chargers to pick off one or two.  If it works like I have designed, final score Chargers 28-20.

Bring.

It.

On.