KXO Radio AM1230 and FM 107.5

San Diego, California - The NFL Playoffs return to San Diego as the AFC West Champion San Diego Chargers, winners of six in a row, host the Tennessee Titans in an AFC Wild Card Playoff Game on Sunday, January 6th at 1:30 p.m. PST at Qualcomm Stadium.

 

CBS will send its No. 1 team of Jim Nantz and Phil Simms to San Diego to call the action.

 

The Chargers are one of the NFL’s hottest teams. They’ve won six straight and 10 of their last 12. Their six-game win streak is the NFL’s second-longest behind undefeated New England. In finishing the year 11-5, the Chargers earned their second straight season with 11-or-more wins and their ninth in team history. The Chargers’ 46 wins in the last four years are the third most in the NFL behind only New England (52) and Indianapolis (51).

 

The Chargers are 7-1 at home in 2007. They were a perfect 8-0 at home in 2006. Since their only home loss of ’07 to Kansas City in Week 4, the Chargers have won six in a row at home, outscoring their opponents by more than 19 points per game (192 to 76). The Chargers’ 15 home wins in the last two years are tied with Indianapolis for most in the NFL. The Chargers have won five-straight in the series with Tennessee, including a 23-17 win in overtime on Dec. 9 when LaDainian Tomlinson, the NFL’s 2007 Rushing Champion, scored on a 16-yard run in overtime to cap a 14-point fourth-quarter comeback. The Titans haven’t won a game in the series since 1992, when they were the Houston Oilers. The Chargers have won the last three series games in San Diego by a combined 55 points, including wins of 38-17 in 2004 and 40-7 in 2006.

 

San Diego’s defense is one of the NFL’s best, particularly at home. The Bolts posted an NFL-best +24 turnover ratio for the season and they led the NFL with 30 interceptions (22 at home) and 48 total takeaways (31 at home). The Chargers’ run defense has been almost impenetrable at Qualcomm Stadium, where opponents are averaging only 76.6 yards per game and only one rushing touchdown has been allowed all season (fewest in the NFL). The last two times the Titans played in San Diego in ’04 and ’06, they were held to 72 and 55 yards rushing, respectively, and did not score a rushing touchdown in either contest.

The Titans enter the playoffs as the sixth seed in the AFC. They earned a playoff berth with their 16-10 win at Indianapolis in the final week of the regular season. The win lifted their record to 10-6 and gave them a tie-breaking edge over the 10-6 Cleveland Browns based on record against common opponents (Tennessee 4-1, Cleveland 3-2). This is the fifth time in nine years the Titans have made the playoffs. The last season in which they earned a postseason berth was 2003. They went 12-4 during the regular season that year and entered the playoffs as a Wild Card team. In the first round, they defeated the Ravens in Baltimore to advance to the Divisional round. Then, they lost by a final score of 17- 14 at New England in the coldest game in franchise history (four degrees at kickoff).

 

This is the fourth all-time postseason game between the Titans and Chargers franchises. They played for the first two AFL Championships following the 1960 and 1961 seasons, with the then-Oilers victorious on both occasions, and the Oilers again defeated the Chargers in a 1979 Divisional Playoff contest.

 

Titans Last Week