by Kevin Hench

Updated: January 18, 2008, 9:04 PM EST 1043 comments

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The conventional wisdom is that the storybook runs of the upstarts — eight straight wins for the Bolts, nine straight road wins for the G-Men — will come to their bone-chilling ends in Foxboro and Green Bay.

But if there's one trend that bears going against it's when everybody claims to know exactly what's going to happen.

Except this week. When everybody will be right.

It should be a good weekend for fans wearing tri-cornered hats, be they Minutemen or Cheeseheads (picks in caps).

PATRIOTS -14 v. Chargers

What is wrong with Philip Rivers? To sum up: He left the field under his own power on Sunday and jawed with Indy fans on the way to the locker room, promising he'd return. When he did come back, he stood on the sideline in full uniform and watched as Billy Volek led the game-winning drive despite later announcing that he could have returned. After his backup completed the upset, Rivers once again engaged the Indy fans in a taunting match.

This guy's got a screw loose. And I'm not talking about the one in his knee brace.

When not yelling at the fans or watching game-winning drives from the sidelines, however, Rivers has been the Chargers' best player in the playoffs. He is 33-for-49 for 556 yards, four touchdowns and an incredible 16.8 yards per completion. By comparison, Tom Brady averaged 10 yards per completion in his masterpiece against Jacksonville.

But can Rivers be effective after sustaining his second knee injury in a month and missing all or most of practice this week? Or would the Chargers be better off going to Volek from the outset rather than finding out the hard way that Rivers can't produce and being down 14-0?

There are a few different ways to handicap this game, broken down roughly as the blowout scenario, the massive upset scenario and the close-but-no-cigar scenario.

The Blowout Scenario

Rivers, LaDainian Tomlinson and Antonio Gates were all healthy in Week 2 when the Chargers visited Foxboro. The Chargers got blown out, 38-14. How could this Sunday -- with the Bolts' key offensive players dinged up -- be any better? How, in fact, could it not be worse?

Want some more harbingers of doom for the Chargers?

The Patriots, supposedly so vulnerable against the run, held the Jaguars to their lowest rushing total in four months (80 yards on 22 carries). San Diego will be playing either its backup QB or a gimpy quarterback. If the Bolts can't move the sticks on the ground, it will get ugly.

This Patriots team may have surpassed the '60s Packers as the best cold-weather team off all time. Not only are the Patriots 7-0 at home in the playoffs in the Belichick-Brady era, but they are also 2-0 in Pittsburgh, including a 41-27 victory in the 2004 AFC championship game that was the coldest playoff game ever played in the Steel City. The Sunday forecast is for lows in the single digits. It will be a reminder of how nice it is to live in San Diego. And that is bad news for the Chargers.

The Massive Upset Scenario

Don't know if Bill Belichick broke out the game film from the 1979 playoff game between the Oilers and the Chargers, but that game would seem to be a cautionary lesson for the Patriots.

The Oilers went into San Diego without starting quarterback Dan Pastorini and tailback Earl Campbell, and leading receiver Ken Burrough was reduced to a decoy by injury. With Gifford Nielsen, Rob Carpenter and Mike Renfro filling in on offense and Vernon Perry (4 interceptions, blocked FG) giving perhaps the greatest individual defensive performance in playoff history, the Oilers pulled off a shocking 17-14 upset of Dan Fouts and Air Coryell.

Might Volek, Michael Turner and Antonio Cromartie spark the same seismic upset this Sunday?

The Close-But-No-Cigar Scenario

While there are many questions surrounding the Chargers offense, the defense has been playing in a class by itself for months.

Before Sunday's 28-24 win in Indy, the Bolts had gone seven straight games (all wins) without allowing more than 17 points. During that stretch they held the opposition to 11.6 points per game. San Diego led the league in takeaways (48) by an astounding 11 over second-place Indy and its plus-24 turnover ratio was tops in the league by six.

Shawne Merriman, Shaun Phillips and Cromartie don't just make plays. They make huge plays.

With its hard-hitting, big-play defense turned loose on a miserable day in New England, the Chargers hang tough before falling short in the fourth quarter of a relatively low-scoring game.

So which scenario will it be?

It's a rout. If the Bolts were healthy, they'd have a shot. But can you imagine a worse situation than trying to play hurt on a frigid field against what might be the best team of all time?

Patriots 34, Chargers 10

PACKERS -7.5 v. Giants

When the Giants made those two heroic defensive stands last Sunday after the Cowboys twice took over with great field position late in the fourth quarter, they sort of had that Beowulf-killing-the-dragon-but-dying-in-the-process look to them.

What, you weren't thinking the exact same thing?

Everything broke right for the Giants last Sunday. They hooked up with a team that looked like it had been prepared by coaches considering job offers elsewhere. They faced a quarterback who looked less than locked-in. They caught a defense napping for the last 47 seconds of the first half. And they were the recipient of a couple of horrible calls, including a 15-yard penalty on Leonard Davis for having the audacity to continue blocking Michael Strahan when the all-time NFL single-season sack leader tried to get up and pursue the quarterback.

And still they needed an end zone pick at the end to preserve a 21-17 victory.

They won't get those same breaks this week. Nobody is trying to poach the Packers coaches. No need to worry about Green Bay's quarterback being locked in. The Green Bay defense will not allow any 47-second TD drives. And New York won't get bailed out by a dubious (since apologized for) intentional grounding call.

Ryan Grant doesn't figure to go as nuts this week — how could he? — but Brett Favre will take advantage of the Giants' injury-ravaged secondary, hitting Donald Driver and Greg Jennings in space and letting them get their YAC on.

Packers 24, Giants 10

Last week: 2-2

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