DJ Bean: A truly fearless visitor is coming to Foxboro

You don't need to be a subscriber to "Team X is ripe for the picking" or "Team Y is due to win" logic to think the Chargers will beat the Patriots Sunday. I think they will. 

Los Angeles of Anaheim of San Diego's team is better at more things, they've won as many games on the road as the Patriots have at home and, as we saw last month in Kansas City, they're not afraid of anything. 

And without acting like anyone in the AFC is truly anything special, are the Patriots really a team the Chargers should fear anyway? We just spent a regular season asking whether Tom Brady was hurt, whether Rob Gronkowski could still be called "Gronk" and what that young man who just gashed the Patriots run defense's name was again. 

So now you've got a Chargers team that just limped past the Ravens in unimpressive fashion perhaps ready to come into New England for what should be a close -- and awesome -- game. 

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First, why it should be close: There are only three teams currently in the playoffs that finished top-10 in both points allowed and passing yards. One of them will play the Chiefs this weekend. The other two will play each other in Foxboro. Vegas sees these teams as being close, too; the Patriots being 4.5-point favorites is the smallest spread of the divisional round. 

But the Chargers prove that number wrong in multiple ways. It's not all about Philip Rivers, but we'll start with him. He's having one of the best seasons of his Hall of Fame career, a fact that's softened by him kind of stinking of late (six picks over the final three regular-season games; a very quiet 160-yard, zero-TD, zero-pick performance in the Wild Card round) and him not having playoff success against the Patriots. 

(You've got to throw that second part out, though. I won't mention Brady's six picks in two postseason meetings with Rivers if you won't mention Rivers' two losses.)

Recent struggles aside, Rivers coming to Foxboro means that perhaps the two gutsiest quarterbacks in the league not named Nick Foles will be playing one another Sunday. Phil Perry noted this week that the Ravens diminished his impact by blitzing the hell out of him, and that the Patriots led the NFL in pressure percentage on third down. 

Stephon Gilmore on Keenan Allen will be a big matchup, but it's not like Rivers doesn't have other options. Mike Williams came alive as the season wore on, most notably catching two touchdowns and the game-winning two-point conversion in the Thursday night Kansas City game. Tight end Hunter Henry might make his season debut coming off a torn ACL. If he's still limited, the Chargers still have 66-year-old Antonio Gates and player-whose-name-sounds-like-he'd-be-way-better-at-football Virgil Green. 

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But even if the Chargers' passing attack is only marginally better than it was against the Ravens, New England's run defense is worrisome enough that L.A. could still win with Melvin Gordon and Austin Ekeler. If Rivers also has a big game, the Pats might be hard-pressed offensively to keep up. 

Which brings us to that New England offense. If you turned conversations with Patriots fans this season into drinking games that demanded a shot at each mention of "weapons," you wouldn't be drunk. You'd be dead. 

But here's the thing about moving the blame away from Brady being hurt or just not playing up to his standards: You're still acknowledging that something's afoot. The playoff schedule doesn't care about how injured you are or what "weapons" you lack. 

Unlike most, I actually put a lot of stock in how Brady looked in the regular-season finale against the Jets. I thought Brady couldn't have possibly declined so much that he'd have one or no touchdowns in six of eight games. I bought into the injury talk, with Mike Giardi suggesting an MCL. 

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Brady had some major gaffes in that Jets game, but he looked so much better. Maybe it's because it was against a bad team that wasn't even playing its good players, but at least he looked better. If Brady turns in a similar four-touchdown performance against the Chargers, the Pats will win. But is that realistic? 

L.A. obviously has a scary pass rush. Derwin James should be able to neutralize Gronkowski. Desmond King could do the same with Julian Edelman. That leaves the Pats either relying on Chris Hogan or trying to win by running the ball. Neither of those sound particularly Patriot-like. 

The Patriots hosting a home playoff game is typically as daunting as it gets for opponents. They're not as scary this year, and the Chargers have accomplished too much to be scared.  Welcome to going from years of being the obvious favorite to merely being a contender. 

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