p]:text-cms-story-body-color-text clearfix”> <\/p>\n
Justin Herbert<\/a> or Drake Maye<\/a>?<\/p>\n Both quarterbacks have had outstanding seasons and will meet on a huge stage Sunday night, each looking to pick up his first victory in the NFL playoffs.<\/p>\n Whereas Herbert is 0-2 in Chargers<\/a> postseason games, Maye is making his first postseason appearance for the New England Patriots after assembling a most valuable player-caliber season.<\/p>\n Herbert hasn\u2019t gotten as much MVP mention but has been elite, especially considering the state of his injury-riddled offensive line, which has a new configuration virtually every week.<\/p>\n Jim Harbaugh<\/a> and the Patriots\u2019 Mike Vrabel are two of the league\u2019s most talented coaches too, and this figures to be a balanced matchup.<\/p>\n The Patriots won 14 games \u2014 a whopping 10 more than the year before \u2014 but didn\u2019t play a lot of great quarterbacks, a middler\u2019s row that included Cam Ward, Spencer Rattler, Dillon Gabriel and a 40-year-old Joe Flacco.<\/p>\n Twice the Chargers have lost playoff games at New England, falling short in the AFC championship game to end the 2007 season and a divisional game in 2018.<\/p>\n How the Chargers can win: <\/b>The Chargers need to put the Patriots on their heels by slowing the running game, which has been New England\u2019s key to winning lately, and force the pass. Maye\u2019s receivers don\u2019t have a lot of big-play potential. On defense the Patriots are solid but not overwhelming. The Chargers need to be effective on third down \u2014 need to stay in third-and-manageable \u2014 to keep drives alive and keep that Patriots defense on the field. Of course protecting Herbert is a priority and it\u2019s a challenge with an offensive line that\u2019s constantly being reshuffled. If the Chargers score early and often, they can take the crowd out of the game.<\/p>\n How the Patriots can win:<\/b> New England has to stay out of obvious passing situations against an opportunistic Chargers defense. That means leaning on the running game, something the Patriots have done the last month. The Patriots need to shore up the defense against the run, although the Chargers don\u2019t thrive on that with a banged-up Omarion Hampton<\/a> and backups. If the Patriots can avoid the turnovers and establish a methodical tempo, they can inch away with field goals.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"p]:text-cms-story-body-color-text clearfix”> Justin Herbert or Drake Maye? Both quarterbacks have had outstanding seasons and will meet on a…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":506243,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5123],"tags":[1582,276,7151,262,29345,82298,1910,158597,226719,29334,84514,2961,224,5337,533,14762,32630,12546,11346,226720],"class_list":{"0":"post-506242","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-los-angeles","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-california","10":"tag-chargers","11":"tag-defense","12":"tag-drake-maye","13":"tag-espanol","14":"tag-game","15":"tag-hamstring","16":"tag-injury-riddled-offensive-line","17":"tag-justin-herbert","18":"tag-knee","19":"tag-la","20":"tag-los-angeles","21":"tag-losangeles","22":"tag-new-england-patriots","23":"tag-odd","24":"tag-patriots","25":"tag-prediction","26":"tag-quarterback","27":"tag-running-game"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115871090153522951","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/506242","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=506242"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/506242\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/506243"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=506242"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=506242"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=506242"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}