It's an AFC showdown! The fourth seed Steelers and fifth seed Chargers are facing off at primetime on Sunday night in what will be another possible playoff preview this week. The game will pit two 2004 draft QB's against one another. Ben Roethlisberger and Philip Rivers are two of the longest-tenured, most successful QBs in the league today and both are determined to get their teams into the playoffs, so this will be one of the most heated matchups that we have seen all season. You won't want to miss out on the action here, so head over to our NFL sportsbook and make your picks now!
LA's Philip Rivers is coming off a 45-10 win last week against the Arizona Cardinals in which he set an NFL record with 25 consecutive completions in a single game. Overall, Rivers was 28 for 29 in that game and threw zero interceptions, giving him a completion percentage of 96.6., which is also an NFL single-game record (with a minimum of 20 attempts).
Against the Steelers, Rivers will look to carry over some of the success from last week into this one. He has lots of weapons on the outside, but his favorite target is wideout Keenan Allen, who had 7 catches for 72 yards and one TD last week.
Chargers Head Coach Anthony Lynn has a lot of praise for Rivers, even though they appear to get in heated conversations on the sidelines.
"It's our second year together, and I've never wavered from what I believe in how this team will look," Lynn said. "I would think (Rivers) has a pretty good understanding of how to win football games.
The bad news for the Chargers is that RB Melvin Gordon had a right knee injury last week that appears to be serious. If he is out, Chargers will have to rely on Austin Ekeler and rookies Justin Jackson and Detrez Newsome to run the ball. They will need those three to be in top form if they hope to rack up wins here in the final stretch. The Chargers have not made the playoffs since 2013.
Meanwhile, Pittsburgh is coming off a tough loss last week to the Broncos, so they will be looking to rebound.
The Steelers have relied all season on QB Rothlisberger and their two main WRs, Antonio Brown and Juju Smith-Schuster. Brown has 10 TDs in this last nine games and 1,105 yards and 12 TDs in his last 10 home games. Meanwhile, Smith-Schuster acts as a great second option for Rothlisberger. He has 1,972 career yards, which over his first 25 NFL games is good enough for 4th most in league history. Last week, Smith-Schuster collected 189 yards against the Broncos.
Steelers RB James Connor also had a big game in last week's loss, tallying 93 yards from the line of scrimmage. In the previous five home games, he has 579 scrimmage yards and six rushing touchdowns.
Rothlisberger will be attempting to throw for 300 plus yards for the fourth straight game. He is second in league with 3,664 passing yards.
The Steelers lead the all-time series 22-7 and have won three out of the last four meetings with the Chargers. However, it was the Chargers who came away with the win the last time these two teams played in Pittsburgh back in 2012.
