Chargers-Patriots: This could be upsetting

By: MIKE SULLIVAN - Staff Writer
A Chargers victory over heavily favored Patriots could rank among sports' most stunning outcomes | Sunday, January 20, 2008 8:09 AM PST ∞

FOXBOROUGH, Mass. ---- Junior Seau has never forgotten the naysayers he encountered as the AFC Championship Game approached in January 1995. There was a near-unanimous feeling that the Pittsburgh Steelers were headed to the Super Bowl and that the Chargers would be powerless to stop the inevitable from occurring.

Seau, then the face of the Chargers, vividly remembers the night before the contest.

"Just sitting in my hotel room in Pittsburgh and hearing all the cheers and pep rallies that were going around and all the Super Bowl videos that were being taped," Seau recalled last week.

"Everything was against us. The yellow towels were flying around. It was definitely a time when we thought we were against the world."

Seau was a big reason the Chargers pulled off an earth-shaking 17-13 victory over the Steelers, a win that put the franchise in the Super Bowl for the only time in its history. It still ranks as the biggest victory in team annals.

Today, Seau will be on the New England sidelines as the Chargers look to score an even-more-stunning upset when they face the unbeaten Patriots in the AFC Championship Game with a berth in Super Bowl XLII on the line. The Chargers are two touchdown underdogs, and it's no stretch to say a victory over New England would immediately rank as one of the biggest upsets in NFL history.

"Absolutely," free safety Marlon McCree said. "We have nothing to lose. Everybody is predicting for us to lose."

The Patriots became the first NFL team to go unbeaten through a 16-game regular season and then dispatched Jacksonville in last Sunday's divisional playoffs.

They scored an NFL-record 589 points this season, and discussions regarding whether they are the best team in NFL history are running rampant.

The consensus biggest upset in NFL history is when the 18-point underdog New York Jets defeated the powerful Baltimore Colts in Super Bowl III. Quarterback Joe Namath guaranteed a Jets victory, and New York followed through with a terrific game-day performance.

The Chargers beating the Patriots would not supplant the Jets' big upset, but a Chargers victory would certainly be considered one of the five biggest upsets in NFL history. Particularly when you factor in the Patriots' record-breaking season along with their recent playoff success ---- they have won three of the past six Super Bowls.

The Chargers are coming off an incredible 28-24 victory over the defending Super Bowl champion Indianapolis Colts, but the Patriots rate as an even tougher hurdle.

"It's a greater challenge because of who they are," Chargers general manager A.J. Smith said. "They're the New England Patriots. With their rich winning tradition and three world championships, and that's before we talk about this particular year. They're 17-0, and potentially we could be taking on one of the greatest teams of all-time. It's unbelievable.

"In saying that, we'll just go up there and do the very best we can. As you know, I love having the opportunity of doing that in the AFC Championship Game, which means we've advanced and made some noise, which is why we're in the position we are.

"But we totally understand what we're up against."

What the Chargers are up against is the challenge of a lifetime. They are about to play a game that could be remembered for decades to come if they spring the upset.

But most people expect to see the Chargers walking off the Gillette Stadium turf downtrodden, while the Patriots move on to the Super Bowl.

"We're up against a tough test," running back LaDainian Tomlinson said. "To get to the Super Bowl, we have to face a team that's undefeated, perhaps the greatest team to ever play. In my mind, it's like David and Goliath. That's the way I look at this."

David and Goliath? That prompted a question on whether Tomlinson was packing his slingshot.

"No, I don't have a slingshot," Tomlinson said.

An all-time sports upset?

It's conceivable that a Chargers win today would rank as more than just one of the top NFL upsets of all-time. It could be viewed as one of the top upsets in all of sports history.

The 1980 U.S. Olympic hockey team's stunning run to the gold medal in Lake Placid, N.Y., seems to have a stranglehold on the top upset throne. The group of amateur players weren't even considered medal material before the Olympics. Their signature win was a mammoth upset of a powerful Soviet Union team in the semifinal round.

Another astonishing accomplishment was Buster Douglas' 1990 upset of Mike Tyson with a stunning 10th-round knockout. Douglas was rated as a 42-to-1 underdog but left the boxing ring as the heavyweight champion of the world.

Upsets regularly occur in college basketball. But tiny Chaminade's victory over top-ranked Virginia and 7-foot-4 star Ralph Sampson, in 1982 is undoubtedly that sport's definitive David vs. Goliath moment. Chaminade was not even an NCAA member at the time, and Sampson was one of the most dominant big men in college basketball history.

There have been numerous other major upsets over the years, but considering it came in an NCAA title game, Villanova's victory over Georgetown in 1985 is widely regarded as one of the biggest upsets in sports history.

The eighth-seeded Wildcats played what was dubbed "The Perfect Game" in producing a spectacular 66-64 victory over top-seeded Georgetown.

Pick a sport, and you'll find an unbelievable upset. In baseball, you have the "Miracle Mets," who stunned Baltimore in five games in the 1969 World Series. In pro basketball, few things rank as more shocking than when the eighth-seeded Denver Nuggets beat the top-seeded Seattle SuperSonics in a 1994 first-round series. College football had two epic upsets just this past season when lower-division Appalachian State defeated No. 5 Michigan and 41-point underdog Stanford beat No. 2 USC to end the Trojans' 35-game home winning streak.

There is debate over when the term "upset" became established as a way to display that a unexpected victory or occurrence had taken place, but the term picked up steam after a horse named Upset beat the great racehorse Man O' War in 1919. The odds of Upset winning were more than 100-to-1, and the loss proved to be the only one ever suffered by Man O' War.

It is with this backdrop that the Chargers have a chance to etch their name in sports lore. Popular belief was that today's AFC Championship Game would be a rematch of last season's Patriots-Colts title game, but the Chargers crashed the party by beating Indianapolis.

A similar upset of the Patriots would be quite the double-double, one that would impress even an In-N-Out Burger cook.

"They're a great team," Chargers fullback Lorenzo Neal said. "Let's be honest: You don't go 17-0. This doesn't happen. So you have to give them respect, because they are worthy of it.

"But you have to go in there and say, 'Look, we can beat this team.' If you don't, then why do you play the game?"

Interesting comment considering there are numerous people around the nation thinking the same thing: Why play the game? Chargers coach Norv Turner has the answer. Basically, nothing said or written has ever decided a football game.

"I don't think you think about it as you're preparing, but it's obviously a great opportunity," Turner said during the week. "Last week, we were picked to lose by so many points (to the Colts) and our guys didn't buy into it. I don't think either side cares what the line is or what the predictions are. I think we all just want to get ready to play a game."

A place in history

The Patriots are doing everything they can to ignore the question asked numerous times daily. It is asked in many different manners, but fails to prompt a legitimate answer.

If your team wins the Super Bowl, should the Patriots be considered the greatest team of all-time?

NFL MVP Tom Brady wants no part of it. Seau shies away from it. Not surprisingly, always-surly coach Bill Belichick sidesteps it whenever it's asked.

Nobody wants to discuss it, even though the Patriots are now just two victories from the first 19-0 season in NFL history.

"Right now, the only thing we're thinking about is the San Diego Chargers Sunday afternoon in the AFC Championship," Belichick said. "That's all we think about and that's all I care about right now. And that's plenty, believe me. ... They're an outstanding football team, and they have my undivided attention."

That single-minded focus is partly behind the Patriots' success. While other people debate the Patriots' place in history, each week New England zeroes in on its opponent and takes nothing for granted.

Making the run even more impressive is that the Patriots are receiving each opponent's best shot every week.

"You really appreciate the opportunity, to be honest with you, because this could be perhaps the greatest football team to ever play," Tomlinson said. "You appreciate getting the opportunity to play them. We know how good they are."

Because of that greatness, the Chargers find themselves in a unique position. A defining victory is just 60 minutes of football away. Win on the frozen turf in Foxborough and they not only find themselves in the Super Bowl, but they'll find themselves being mentioned as pulling off one of the biggest upsets in NFL history.

"It's going to be a big challenge for us, and we're up for it," safety Eric Weddle said. "They are 17-0 for a reason. They've beaten everyone on the schedule.

"We do have something to lose ---- a chance to go for the championship. Other than that, there's no added pressure because no one expects us to win."

Weddle's refrain is familiar to Seau, the 18-year NFL veteran who first rose to stardom while playing at Oceanside High. It may have been 13 years ago, but he has never forgotten the harsh comments and stern words he heard prior to the Chargers' monumental victory over the Steelers on Jan. 15, 1995.

"It's very demeaning when you go so far and the world is telling you that you have no chance," Seau said.

"You can definitely use that to your advantage and go from there. With everything that's been said to our opponents, it's something that they can use and they will use."

Contact staff writer Mike Sullivan at (760) 739-6645 or msullivan@nctimes.com. Comment at sports.nctimes.com.

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