Getty Images

By Ron Borges

Almost since the day the Patriots came from behind to beat the Indianapolis Colts in November, the pundits, prognosticators and pigskin prophets (not to mention the pigskin profiteers) insisted that the “real’’ Super Bowl would be played this Sunday in Foxborough between the defending Super Bowl champions and the best team of the New Millennium. Obviously, things didn’t turn out that way.

A funny thing happened to the Colts on their way to Foxborough. Some guys from the West Coast came into their house and pulled off a drive by. The San Diego Chargers, of all teams, and Norv Turner, of all coaches, beat down the Colts by A) knocking their top running back out of the game at a critical moment, a situation that led to Peyton Manning throwing a perfect middle screen that should have been a touchdown but turned into a dropped ball when Addai’s young replacement didn’t react quickly enough and saw the ball coming too late to hold on to it. San Diego KO.

Early in the game future Hall of Fame wide receiver Marvin Harrison, who hadn’t played in 11 weeks because of a nagging injury, fumbled away what would have been the Colts’ second consecutive scoring drive when he was hit in a way that guys don’t get hit in their living rooms and coughed up the ball after a long gain. Instead of a 14-0 march to the inevitable for the Colts, San Diego had the ball and soon were back in the game. San Diego KO.

Late in what would become the final drive of a long, losing day for Manning, he appeared to complete a critical pass to his All-Pro receiver, Reggie Wayne, but Wayne was dislodged from both the ball and his senses by a crushing hit from the Charger defense and it became a crippling incompletion at a critical juncture in what was now a contest slipping away from the Colts. San Diego KO.

In the end, that’s why the Chargers will be in frigid Foxborough Sunday wondering why the sun no longer works in this part of the country. As glittering as some of their offensive players may be when healthy the Chargers are in the AFC championship game because they have what in boxing is considered the great equalizer. They can knock you out.

They to Gillette Stadium as a well-deserved 15-point underdog but they are an underdog with bite. The Chargers, known through much of their history as a pass-happy team of surfer boys from sunny San Diego, have a puncher’s chance to do what no one else has done all year. They have a puncher’s chance of knocking out the undefeated Patriots.

Frankly, that’s not much of a chance as so many big punchers have found out over the years but it’s more than the Colts have sitting at home. They have no chance. At least the Chargers have that chance.

San Diego has made its reputation in recent years with its ability to run the ball first, last and always with LaDainian Tomlinson and then throw it to the likes of tight end Antonio Gates. That will all change come Sunday because Tomlinson is limping with a hyperextended knee, Gates is limping with a broken toe and quarterback Philip Rivers has been limping for a month with a bad knee as well.

So how could the Chargers limp into Foxborough and be competitive with a team that beat them 38-14 when everyone was healthy in Week 2? They may not, but there have been positive changes for the Chargers since the last time New England saw them as well and they should not be ignored.

First, Antonio Cromartie was not starting at corner in September but he has since not only taken the job from Drayton Florence he’s taken the NFL by storm. Cromartie may be the leading playmaker among defensive backs in the AFC today and he is a guy who can play in single coverage against anyone, thus freeing up defensive coordinator Ted Cottrell to do what he wasn’t doing in September, which is letting his pass rushers attack the quarterback.

As team after team has learned, or should have learned a long time ago, to beat Tom Brady you have to beat him up. If you try to stay back in coverage you can drop 15 men and it won’t matter. Brady is too smart and thinks too quickly. Unwisely, the Jaguars tried it in last weekend’s playoff game, blitzing only eight times. For a time they confused Brady but once he got the hang of what they were doing he simply riddled their soft coverages and then sent them home.

Cottrell is aggressive by nature and has turned Shawne Merriman and Shaun Phillips loose in the second half of the season, in part because he’s finally sure of what they can do and in part because the elevation of Cromartie and the shifting of Florence to nickel back has bolstered his secondary in two areas, thus freeing the rest of the defense to attack the quarterback.

That is what puncher’s do. They wait for an opening and then attack. George Foreman, for example, lost every second of every round against then heavyweight champion Michael Moorer except for the few seconds it took him to land a massive straight right hand and the 10 seconds necessary to count Moorer out after it did to make Foreman the oldest heavyweight champion in history. That’s the Chargers only real hope. The knockout.

San Diego must land several massive shots on Brady and hope it forces him out of his rhythm. Forced to throw before he wants to, Brady has seemed human at times, as he was against the Eagles and Ravens. What San Diego must do is reprise what the Eagles did defensively and then turn it up a notch to force Brady into making the kind of turnovers San Diego has ridden all the way to the AFC title game.

Several nights before their September meeting I ran into John Madden walking through downtown Boston and we stopped and chatted for some time about the game. Madden felt, quite correctly as things turned out, that the Chargers were not at that time ready for a big game because they had a new head coach and eight new assistants. They simply were not coordinated enough, nor familiar enough with their players and each other, to know for sure how to react to the kind of pressure New England would put on them several days later.

The wisdom of that statement was obvious when they played. But today’s Chargers, while still facing an uphill battle, are not the same ones that were embarrassed here in September. San Diego has won eight straight and 10 of its last 12 in large part because it’s defense has allowed only 13.1 points per game during that winning streak.  More importantly, it has forced 26 of its league-leading 48 turnovers, and sacked the quarterback 26 times.

Now that Merriman is free to come off the edge, it’s a nightmare scenario for Pro Bowl left tackle Matt Light, who struggles with speed rushers and allowed two sacks in their first meeting, although shutting down Merriman after that. If Merriman can make Brady feel his presence, the KO punches that finished the Colts will be landing again.

“This defense will challenge us more than any defense we’ve faced all year,’’ conceded Brady, although few believe he’s losing any sleep over the Chargers. “I hope we play as well as we can. That’s the only way I think we’re gonna be able to advance through this round is to play our best football.’’

What San Diego must do to be in the game at the end is punch the Patriots in the mouth and they must do it more than once. Offensively, even if Tomlinson and Gates play as expected and regardless of whether Rivers or backup Billy Volek is at quarterback, they are not likely to win a pitched scoring battle with the best offense since the early days of Napolean’s Army. They have to score but they can’t win a fast-break style of game.

Several teams have matched New England for a while score for score but eventually the pressure Brady, Randy Moss, Wes Welker and the rest of their weapons put on them causes them to wilt. Mistakes are made, balls are forced, silly chances are taken and the game is lost.

San Diego can’t afford to get into that kind of tit-for-tatsdown confrontation. If they are to win, and when you’re a 15-point underdog no one expects you to, they have to do it by forcing the team that has produced the fewest turnovers in the league into mistakes. The only way that will happen is if that defense attacks and attacks and attacks. San Diego must hit their receivers, their running backs and most of all their quarterback repeatedly. If not, they go home with their playoff dreams in a box.

Once there was a time when it was the Patriots who wanted to turn games like this into a street fight, as they did when they upset the St. Louis Rams in the first of their three Super Bowl victories and in several wins over the Colts in the post-season. But they are about offense now. They are the new Rams, the 589-point scoring machine that would rather play offense than defense and rather throw it than run it.

It would be too strong to say the 17-0 Patriots have gone soft but they are no longer guys spoiling for a fight. The Chargers have become that kind of team, especially with their depleted offense, whether they like it or not. Their choice is simple – land haymakers or get embarassed.

In the first meeting Moss and Welker shredded the San Diego secondary but that was before Cromartie took over and emerged as a Pro Bowl cornerback and before Cottrell had enough confidence in the secondary and the rush to let them both loose. Still, Moss will be geared for a big game because he knows he has disappeared in these kind of games in the past, when he was with the Vikings.

In an odd way, for San Diego to make this the kind of game everyone thought it would be if the Colts were in town, it will also have to land several big blows with its offense. Whether they come from Tomlinson, the league’s best runner but one limping with one bad wheel, or wide receivers Chris Chambers and 6-5 Vincent Jackson or from Gates, who played the entire game in Indianapolis but was ineffective, doesn’t matter. But someone has to hurt the Patriots, as Jackson did the Colts, to give that defense more freedom to deliver the kind of blows it landed in Indianapolis.

Chambers’ arrival in a mid-season trade with Miami energized a dormant passing game and he’s shown his value in the playoffs, catching six for 121 yards against Tennessee and opening up the field because of the respect a defense has to have for his ability to get deep.

What has been more surprising is the recent emergence of Jackson, who in the playoffs has 12 catches for 207 yards and two scores. He’s a huge target, as is Gates, and he and Chambers will put pressure on the Patriots weakest link – its secondary.

New England covers the middle of the field well but teams can make yardage and do damage on out routes and out and ups because tiny Ellis Hobbs struggles there and Asante Samuel has a bad habit of trying to jump routes and thus opens himself up to being beaten even though he remains one of the AFC’s top corners overall.

The return of Richard Seymour has done much to shore up the run defense, which slammed the Jags down last weekend and could do the same Sunday. San Diego will likely find it tough going between the tackles but Tomlinson is one of the league’s most dangerous backs when he catches short passes in the flat with room to run. Add powerful inside runner Michael Turner and again the potential lies for damage to be done.

In the end, the question is simply this. Will the Chargers come into frozen Foxborough on one of the coldest days of the year and deliver the kind of blows necessary to upset one of, if not the, the greatest team ever assembled?
Probably not but they have a chance - a puncher’s chance.