Last Nov Indy won. The link goes to Yahoosports sortable stats. Nice, but a little sparse in terms of content and analysis. Last year they were no great shakes in terms of rushing (only 4 slots ahead of the Colts, but that was a 28 YPG difference). And in both 08 and 09 Rivers has been on fire, probably negating an unreliable running game.

The loss in Jan 2008 was due almost entirely to our lack of pass rush—not to either team’s run game. No Freeney + hobbled Mathis = hero time for Billy Volek.

I’d probably pin it on their much softer D, Jammal Williams’s injury, and much weaker special teams. Last year in the playoffs, Mike Scifres killed the Colts more than anything else. Then Darren Sproles in the return game and rushing game, followed by our inability to run (hasn’t changed statistically too much but we now seem able to run when we need to), and then… maybe the refs.

Really, if you sort through the past two seasons and playoffs rushing stats at the link, you’ll see that SD was not very impressive at all previously, it’s just that the Colts were much worse. And this year we both “stink” based purely on YPG. Based in situational success, as measured by footballoutsiders.com, we’re a bit ahead of them.

the worse it looks for us.

in 07 and 08 the Indy Defense was ranked #1 and #3 against the pass by yardage, and this year quite a bit lower. Passing is more important than running in today’s NFL.

The Chargers? Last in the AFC in 07, a bit better in 08, and this year 4th against the pass in terms of yardage.

Now yardage is a flawed stat to be sure, but the two teams are going in opposite directions.

Then again, thanks to injured DEs, in 07 we were dead last in playoff passing yards against, but in 2008 pretty darn good (3rd out of 6).

I think I’ll stick with FO’s stats….