What CNN/SI says about the Chargers-Bengals game

[Heatmiser]

From their weekly picks:

San Diego Chargers (9-7) at Cincinnati Bengals (11-5)
The Chargers certainly appear to be the quintessential "dangerous team" in this year's AFC playoffs, having needed an improbable chain of events -- not to mention a little help from the officials last week against Kansas City -- to fall their way just to get back to the postseason for the first time since 2009. That gives Philip Rivers and Co. a playing-with-house-money feel, but if the Bengals are as good as I think they are, San Diego's karma won't matter. This is no-excuses time for Cincinnati, which has reached the playoffs five times in the Marvin Lewis coaching era, but is still waiting for its first postseason win. Unbeaten at home this season, the Bengals should have everything working in their favor. If they can't get over the hump and into the divisional round with this team, against this playoff opponent, then Cincinnati will rank as one of the underachievers of the year.
Read More: http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/nfl...#ixzz2pLDr5C2F

Also, not one of their 'experts' picked the Chargers. Pretty much everyone across the various sports media is picking the Bengals (except Trent Dilfer). I do hope that McCoy uses this to his advantage and the team comes out loose and whips the Bengals good. Green Bay has a worse record, but they are the darlings of the NFC right now because of Rodgers. Chargers are the ugly girl at the party.

TG

[Guest]

We are the ugly girl at the party. I am glad that we made the playoffs, but can't see us going further than this game - but hey, I also thought we would be 7-9 before
Floyd, DX and Ingram got hurt.

[Marshall/Boogie]

Man, if I was on the team, I couldn't wait for Sunday to make them all eat their words.
McCoy: it really is Bolts vs the world - use this on the team, especially the young'uns!

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I317 using Tapatalk

[MakoShark]

This team has made a habit of proving people wrong. I hope they do it again. Either way I'm happy they have given me a good reason to break out my last batch of carne asada and cook up a feast to watch the game with. :smile:

[Stinky Wizzleteats+]

We beat ourselves more this year in our losses then we got beaten. If we stop the self inflicked wounds we win.

[RTPbolt]

5-2 against playoff teams....we play up to the competition and I think away games are probably better to get in the right frame of mind.

We've shown multiple times we can go into other people's stadiums and beat quality opponents by solid play. We made a couple critical mistakes against Cincy but that game was really closer than some may think. Hold onto the ball this time on offense and do what we do best and we can win this. Even if we don't win i'm proud of this team's accomplishment in very much a transition year. We are on the right track. Lets take on the world anyway....we have as much a shot as any team with our offense playing well.

[Steve]

A lot of it will just come down to how Andy Dalton plays. Cinci has one of the better defenses in the AFC. We aren't going to score easily against them. But their O sputters when Dalton doesn't lay well, and he doesn't play that well when they can't run. So the key for us is to play solid run D and just play the ball control thing. We need to wear down Cinci, and we need to keep them out of scoring position. If we do that, I don't think we need to score a lot, although doing all that gives the potential to score, if we can just keep giving the O a chance. Provided we play solid on D, it will probably come down to TOP and field position, and I like our chances in that kind of game.

[Antonio's Gates]

Chargers have NOTHING to lose. All the pressure is on cinci. That's dangerous. The team has been in playoff mode for the last month or so. They might just pull it off. It'll be tough though and I wouldn't discredit cinci just because dalton is their QB (glad we got rivers tho)

[blahblahblah]

Dilfer is always positive on us. Man crush on Rivers.

[RTPbolt]

If it comes down to the last half of the game and its a close one i have faith in our offensive plan to score. The long ball is near out for us imo but i can see them taking shots to Green hoping for slipping causes easy tds.

Play ball control like normal and run matthews and woodhead. Screens will be seen a lot on both sides. The better blocking team is going to win this one.

[Kyle]

You know... trying to be objective, I can see why the media likes Cinci, but surprised there aren't more that pick the Chargers. Cincinnati is undefeated at home. They have a better defense. They're outstanding in the red zone. I can see why the experts like the home team here.

However, their QB is inconsistent. Some weeks he's outstanding, some weeks he's a train wreck. We have the better QB, and that's a huge factor in this game.

[richpjr]

Someone mentioned to me that they heard Dungy on an interview and he also picked us.