Chargers vs. Titans from the Titans side

Yes, we're on the eve of the Chargers and Titans tomorrow in Nashville, (yes, I know what day they're playing on, doesn't mean I have to acknowledge it) and because it's the only meaningful football that day, your average december game with postseason implications gets thrusted into the spotlight.

The Titans, if anything, bring some badly needed drama to an AFC Wild Card chase thats high on quantity but relatively low on quality. Indeed it would be a dramatic for a team at one point 0-6, and staring down perhaps another painful rebuild this offseason, to turn it all around and make the playoffs. Sure the 7-7 record looks awfully pedestrian for a team coming off a thirteen win season, but it's the Titan's record in their last eight games thats gives Titan's fans hope: 7-1 with the one loss coming against the undefeated Colts. Consider that if the Titans had just played average red zone offense in that Colt's game, the Titans may well be 8-6 right now and we could very well be talking about the possibility of this team running the table to win their last ten games, an unprecedented NFL feat.

A victory tomorrow for the Titans seems like a daunting task against San Diego and their painfully simple yet freaking hard to stop-Offense. If NFL offenses were old world European cuisines, the Chargers would be sicilian: simple recipes, world class ingredients. Even more daunting for the Titans is the surprisingly average defense they'll trot out against the Chargers tomorrow night. The Titans, while disappointed they lost a player of Albert Haynesworth's calibur, looked like they would do just fine in withstanding it. Whether it's Big Albert's absence to blame for it or not, the defense has taken one big step backwards from last year. At one time a dominant passrusher, DE Kyle Vanden Bosch hasn't been the same player since his groin injury in the second half of the 2008 season. SS Michael Griffin looked like he was ready to join the Polamalu-Reed class of Safety in this league before the season began. Now, he'll fall far short of his big play totals he achieved in 2008.

Perhaps the most consitent Titan of this decade, is the one that won't be available to the team friday night. Just a few days ago it was announced that LB Keith Bulluck will miss the rest of the season due to a torn interior cruciate ligament.

It's looking likely, the Titans best chance to win this ballgame may be by way of shootout. Not to say Vince Young, Chris Johnson, and a superior Offensive line can't pull it out though. The Titans can also take solace in the fact that if they do dispose of San Diego, the only obstacle remaining on their schedule to a winning record is the very injury depleted Seattle Seahawks in week seventeen. Again, not to say a playoff berth won't happen, but a 9-7 record after starting 0-6 is a nice victory for the franchise in itself.