2010 NFL Week 15 – Preview: San Francisco 49ers vs San Diego Chargers
San Francisco put a rock-hard performance against Seattle
Seahawks on Sunday, but I'm definitely ready to confess that a good piece of that performance advantaged from an extremely poor performance from Seahawks' QB Matt
Hasselbeck. The 49ers did force him into some rough conditions, but he also made some bone-headed choices that did not help his cause.
Now, San Francisco will face a San Diego Chargers offensive attack that can be hot-headed. Chargers have a quarterback Philip
Rivers who is playing better than most QBs in the NFL. They also got their most explosive maker Vincent
Jackson back into shape as he is finally considering playing time again, and the San Francisco defence has a short week to prepare for this offensive attack.
San Francisco surely has reason to worry, but I am curious by the challenge this game presents to the 49ers' defence. Their defence has been crazily incompatible this season, mixing inspiring performances with complete no-shows. They definitely seemed solid
in the secondary and in the rush defence on Sunday, but now they need to do it against an offense that is much less likely to self-destruct.
Two big issues on offense at this point are whether Antonio Gates will play and how fast Vincent Jackson can get into legit game shape and get back to being the big playmaker he has been in the past.
Gates has been dealing with a torn plantar fascia and was a DNP for Monday practice. Though, yesterday he backed off that report as it seems that he will not do more damage by playing. Rather he will just have to deal with the pain.
Vincent Jackson and Malcolm Floyd were tied last season with 17.2 yards per catch, and if Jackson can get going that is just one more difficulty for the San Francisco. San Diego is already leading in the NFL in yards per attempt by a great margin. Chargers
are averaging 8.8 yards per pass attempt and it is 0.8 yards more than the number two Pittsburgh Steelers and New England Patriots. No one else leads the next squad behind them by that much.
San Diego is getting 18.9 yards per catch from Malcolm Floyd and 18.4 yards per catch from Patrick
Crayton. They have a combined 63 catches between them and their averages per catch are good for 4th and 6th in the NFL. That is not too shabby.
San Francisco is moving to a strong defense with the secondary and as a result opening up the underneath stuff. Even without Gates, San Diego has Darren
Sproles who can crush them in that shorter range.
Takeo Spikes has been having a wonderful season, but if he could hang with Sproles' speed in coverage. The 49ers have some brilliant linebackers, but Sproles will present a difficulty in the passing game.
If the San Diego offense is working on most of its cylinder, the 49ers could be in for a long day. While it will not be surprising to see the deep shell and it also will not be astonishing to see the San Francisco offense do everything it can to control
the clock with a heavy dose of the run.
Oakland Raiders beat San Diego Chargers by taking an early lead on SD faults and then putting together a leading speeding up performance. We will see if the San Francisco can repeat that, or even if they choose to repeat that.
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