@ Tennessee

Merry Christmas to everyone out there and hopefully you and yours are having a wonderful holiday season getting all of the gifts you hoped to receive this year. As for the Chargers, they certainly didn’t ask Santa for a short week and a Friday night Christmas Day game this year, but the Bolts will roll with the punches and come out fighting despite this lump of coal in their stocking. Tennessee is in a similar position fighting for their playoff lives in today’s contest and the prospect of facing a desperate team is never a good one. Undoubtedly one huge key to success in this one for San Diego will be their ability to contain Titans running back Chris Johnson and limit his big play opportunities. With the bend but don’t break mantra that the team has carried all season long, this aspect of tonight’s contest is something they are totally familiar with. LaDainian Tomlinson offered praise for Johnson’s abilities saying: “I think he’s excellent. Dynamic. Tough. I really like Chris Johnson.” LT wasn’t alone in the spirit of giving as Head Coach Norv Turner was complimentary as well saying: “He’s as explosive player as we’ve faced or probably in the league in a long time.” On defense, common adjectives used to describe Johnson’s running style from players were “fast” courtesy of Tim Dobbins or “great vision and patience” by Stephen Cooper. Perhaps Shaun Phillips summed it up best when he said of the Titans speedster: “He’s one of a kind, obviously.” So clearly the Bolts are aware of the task at hand here tonight as Johnson is within reach of the great Eric Dickerson’s all-time single season rushing record just 375 yards short of the 2,105 yard mark that Dickerson compiled. His containment tonight is going to be key in deciding the outcome of the game. As for the weather, for Christmas Day in Nashville, Tennessee things are right about average tonight with cool temperatures in the mid 30’s set for game time and no precipitation in the forecast. An optimistic stat for the start of the game is the fact that over the last five seasons, San Diego has a stellar 7-1 record when the game time temperature is 40 degrees or below which may be surprising to some fans. The elements don’t seem to bother this warm weather team and their execution out on the field.

Perhaps the best news of all is the fact that Nick Hardwick will be the guy snapping the ball to Philip Rivers tonight as he will play in his first live action since his ankle injury and subsequent surgery in week 1. The Bolts start things with the football and LT breaks two runs reminiscent of the LT of a few years ago as the offensive line opens up two gaping holes for him and the Bolts are at midfield. After a false start penalty gets them off schedule, the drive stalls out and Mike Scifres kicks the ball to Tennessee. Johnson shows off his patience and burst early as the Bolts lost contain and allow a huge 25 yard gain on the Titans first play from scrimmage. Two Vince Young completions move the chains twice and the Titans are into field goal range already on this drive. Getting pressure on Young to make him uncomfortable in the pocket and take away his time to make decisions is going to be huge in this contest. On cue, the Bolts bring the heat and stop the Titans on third down forcing a long field goal attempt by Rob Bironas on which he splits the uprights to give the Titans a 3-0 lead. Rivers heads back out onto the field looking to get things started offensively for the Chargers and a costly penalty for Tennessee helps the Bolts move the chains to start the drive. Rivers stares down the barrel of the gun on a Titans third down blitz to make a key completion to Vincent Jackson as the ball is now at the Tennessee 30. The offensive line continues to look great here tonight as a pull block by Louis Vasquez opens up a nice hole and LT totes the ball into the red zone for the first time on the night. Courtesy of a costly third and short pass interference penalty assessed to Courtland Finnegan, San Diego has a first and goal on tap. The offensive line continues to assert its superiority as two more LT runs get the Bolts into the end zone and the Chargers take a 7-3 lead. As the quarter is nearing its conclusion, Johnson again displays some fantastic patience and elusive moves getting to the edge of the edge of the Chargers defense for a nice gain.

A scramble by Young moves the chains again and the Titans begin quarter number two on the Chargers side of the field. San Diego needs to focus on holding the edge and maintaining their gap discipline on defense for the remainder of this game as Johnson has been effective when he gets to the perimeter early in this one. Tennessee converts on a fourth down after the Chargers defense contains their running game a bit better on early downs, but on the ensuing first down play Young throws a costly interception to Brandon Siler who reads the quarterback’s eyes perfectly and the ball goes back to the Chargers. The Rivers to Jackson rapport is becoming a theme on this drive as two completions to the 6’5” target move the Bolts in Tennessee territory as the short passing game is opening up in this 2nd quarter. For Rivers, the hard count has been ultra effective thus far tonight as he draws his third offside penalty on the Titans defense through just a quarter and a half of play. Wow is all that needs to be said about the escapability of Rivers as he evades the rush and stays behind the line of scrimmage to deliver the ball to a wide open Antonio Gates who waltzes into the end zone for a 14-3 Chargers lead. Young and the Titans return to the field and after two more carries by Johnson, Young attempts to scramble on third down and Phillips catches him from behind and dislodges the football as Cooper comes up with the recovery the Bolts have the ball again near midfield. A holding call on Marcus McNeill negates a touchdown as Rivers comes out firing on first down completing a 53 yard bomb to Floyd that is wiped out. Tennessee appears to be unraveling a bit as they take an unnecessary roughness penalty for throwing Rivers to the ground after a completed screen pass and as a result the Titans coaching staff is assessed another personal foul on top of that for unsportsmanlike conduct. That turns a benign 2 yard screen pass into a 30 yard gain after the two 15 yard penalties are walked off. After a false start on the Chargers, Rivers throws a strike to Legedu Naanee to give San Diego a first and goal to go situation at the 10. After two LT runs get them to third and goal at the two, a great route by Darren Sproles opens up and Rivers finds him on the goal line as the Bolts strike again for a touchdown moving out to a 21-3 advantage. Tennessee returns to the field and they move the chains twice through the air with Johnson and then Nate Washington catching passes. A completion to Kenny Britt moves the chains again and the Titans are moving the ball on the Bolts trying to close the half strong as they near field goal range. After a scramble by Young and a completion to Johnson, the Titans use their final timeout and will have three plays from the Chargers 4 to try and pull closer before the half ends. Young immediately pulls the ball down and runs the ball into the end zone to get Tennessee into shouting distance closing things to 21-10 as this game heads to the half.

Miscues were the story of that 2nd quarter as the Titans shot themselves in the foot with a handful of costly penalties as well as two big turnovers by Young in that frame. Even with all of the mistakes in the opening half, the Titans will start the 3rd quarter with the ball and in proximity of the Bolts. San Diego’s defense comes out of the locker room and makes a statement containing the Titans running game to force a punt for the first time tonight. Rivers throws arguably the best pass you will see all year on a completion to Gates for a 32 yard over the shoulder play that moves the Bolts to midfield. A magnificent blitz pickup by Sproles affords Rivers the time to find Floyd over the middle of the field and move the chains once again. After a screen to Mike Tolbert gets San Diego into the red zone, a pass interference call in the end zone sets up the second LT touchdown of the night as the Bolts open up a 28-10 advantage on the Titans. The same Bolts defense produces similar results to the opening drive of the half as another three and out summons a Brett Kern punt and Rivers returns to the field with the San Diego offense. Jackson and Rivers continue their dominance as Jackson shows off some beautiful footwork on the sideline to tap his toes and turn a great out route throw by Rivers into a complete pass. A brilliantly designed screen play to Sproles goes for 22 yards and the Bolts are into field goal range again. On a third and impossible somehow Rivers fits the ball into a spot where only his receiver can catch it and Floyd reels the ball in for a first and goal on which Sproles scampers the final 9 yards to paydirt and the score runs to 35-10 San Diego. The Titans come back out on the field and look to move the ball with their best player Johnson by getting the ball into his hands on the first three plays before another pick is thrown by Young into the arms of Eric Weddle who returns the ball to the Tennessee 27. It may be a bit premature to call this game over, but don’t expect to see that Bolts starters much in the final quarter of this game as Jacob Hester checks in to the Chargers backfield. The exit of Rivers should be coming sooner rather than later as Sproles breaks a huge gain with his outstanding quickness making tacklers miss moving the ball down to the Titans 5.

This game moves to the final quarter and Sproles begins it on a high note scoring for the third time on the night making the score 42-10 Bolts. The Titans continue to feed Johnson on the next drive as Young and his receivers are having an off night with dropped balls all over the lot and some questionable decision from the quarterback as well at times. Tennessee punts the ball back to the Bolts and the clock cannot move quickly enough for the Chargers here as this one winds down with Billy Volek now replacing Rivers under center. A heavy dose of Hester and Tolbert from the Bolts gets one first down before Hester coughs up the ball and the Titans recover the ball with a chance to make the score a bit more respectable. On the ensuing drive, Johnson totes the ball a few more times before breaking a 25 yard burst to the end zone racking up some more yards inching ever closer to the elusive 2,000 yard mark on the year as the score is now 42-17 Chargers. The Bolts come back out to grind the clock some more and Tolbert breaks a nice run into Titans territory as the clock slowly wilts away nearing the five minute mark. Jon Runyan is in the game here on this drive getting some valuable reps and the Bolts are running behind him with Tolbert moving the pile as the game is now under three minutes remaining. Tolbert and the Bolts finish this game off with that punishing drive to smother the clock down to zeroes.

Another dominant performance by the Chargers and this one was won in the trenches as the San Diego offensive line just controlled the line of scrimmage from start to finish. Hardwick’s return really made an apparent impact on the line’s play as they seemed to have an extra gear in this game. Now with 18 wins in a row in December and that streak will last for another eleven plus months as this victory was the final game for the Bolts in the month this year. This win locks up the second seed in the AFC playoffs for the Chargers so it would be expected that many key starters on both sides of the ball including players playing with nagging injuries would see little if any action in the season finale next week at home against the Washington Redskins.

Tags: Antonio Gates, Billy Volek, Brandon Siler, Brett Kern, Courtland Finnegan, Eric Dickerson, Jacob Hester, Jon Runyan, Kenny Britt, LaDainian Tomlinson, Louis Vasquez, Mike Scifres, Mike Tolbert, Nate Washington, Norv Turner, Philip Rivers, Rob Bironas, Shaun Phillips, Tennessee Titans, Tim Dobbins, Vince Young, Vincent Jackson, Washington Redskins