Exactly right. Without Brackett I don’t know how this D can match up and get off the field. This is bad news.

I hope Freeney and Mathis have a stellar day (night)! Over at the Bolts’ sight, they are quoting Jaws as saying the Rivers should be the MVP – or at least in the discussion.

Personally, I want to see that punk go down….and not to the 4th floor for a massage. ;)

Senn instead of Hagler is the first sub off the bench. An especially big deal because that’s where I (and I expect everyone else) would draw the line between starting caliber and special teamer in the LB corps.

Nice picture =p

Brackett is an awesome, intelligent LB who always seems to be where he should be for the big plays. But to tell you the truth L.T. might not even go and even if he does a strained groin is nothing to shrug off for anyone especially a RB. And I don’t know about you guys, but even with Brackett out I’d take the 6th rated passing defense (also broke the passing TDs given up by 3 for the season) against the 31st ranked passing defense. Their only way to completely handle the game will be to run the ball. And I went over this in another thread but since signing Antonio Johnson we’ve actually been pretty solid. The only reason our numbers are down were from the beginning of the year and not being prepared for Ed Johnson to get caught with pot. Foster became the starting DT when he was released and he’s finally going to be healthy too. Our D is going to be the healthiest it’s been all season. And I love Brackett, but I don’t think we absolutely need him to beat SD. They’ll have to pull us out of the Tampa 2 to be threatening and I don’t think a banged up L.T. is going to be able to do that. I mean really, put it into perspective, we’re 12-4 and the 11th best defense in the league. After multiple injuries and an offense that couldn’t move the ball and would go 3 and out. Freeney and Mathis have played leaps and bounds better since the offense started to click. I don’t think the Chargers defense can stop us. If they decide to pass to us they play right into the strength of our defense. Rivers is a TERRIBLE scrambler, I’m not talking Peyton Manning just plain slow, his ball control is awkward. If he tries to do that against us he’s going to get his feelings hurt. And straight up I’d take Clark over Gates even if I had the choice. And Vincent Jackson and Chris Chambers might scare the crappy teams the Chargers have faced but we’re not the AFC West. It’ll be close but I still think our D stands a much better chance at stopping or at least containing their offense than their defense stopping our offense.

Like I said, the Colts are 12-4. At some point in time if you’re beating a team then they have to try to win the game by passing. They’re not going to run the ball at the end of the game, and most of our games have been close. We’ve given up 6 TDs through the air the entire year. That means we don’t give up passing TDs throughout the course of the game and at the end of games, our D shuts down. If they play us with a healthy L.T. in a power rush mode I still think we can hang but it’ll be shakier. If they try to pass on us they’re going to get hurt.

And I wouldn’t worry too much about Gates tearing us up. Sanders can do alot more than stop the run. He’s not going to fool Sanders and go deep. If we get ahead of them they can take all the 8-12 yard pass plays they want. I don’t think they’re going to stop our offense.