NFL Mash

Most pundits said the AFC West was already decided & SD would have to play for the wildcard.

Rivers threw for 4,254 yards 8th, 28 TD’s tied-6th, 8.8 yards per passing attempt 1st, 64 completions of 20+ yards 1st, only 9 INT’s 4th with a minimum 400 pass attempts, and a 104.4 passer rating 3rd – only beaten by Drew Brees & Brett Favre.

But then, like all of their seasons under Turner, they played their best football when it counted the most.

By that time, the Broncos were 6-0, had a 3 1/2 game lead over the Chargers, and had just beaten them 34-23.

They would go on to win the AFC West, their 4th straight division title, only Oakland with 5 straight 1972-1976 is better, along the way blowing out Denver with a convincing 32-3 victory at Denver & defeating every NFC East team, finished the regular season with 11 straight wins tying the 1961 team record & is also tied for the 5th longest win streak entering the playoffs, finished with an impressive 13-3 record including 4-0 in December, extending their NFL record with 18 straight wins in December, & also tying the Miami Dolphins 1970-1974 in November for the longest winning streak in any month, and lastly also getting the #2 seed as well as a first round bye.

Once again the Chargers started their season slowly, with a 2-3 record.

This was a season of the continual improvement of Philip Rivers & the passing game, and LaDainian Tomlinson no longer being the focus of the offense.

However, on January 17, 2010, their season ended when they were upset by the fifth seeded New York Jets 17-14 in the AFC Divisional game.

The fans wanted the coach, Norv Turner, to be fired, especially after a lackluster performance at Oakland & being embarrassed at Pittsburgh.

This entry was posted on Friday, January 1st, 2010 at 12:00 pm and is filed under nfl. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.