If you could have received a "message from your future self" during your FFL draft that said before Week 12 there were three teams in the NFL with a better record than the San Diego Chargers, you wouldn't have been too surprised. You were planning to draft your fantasy team to account for a great Charger team -- Tomlinson, Rivers, Gates.
But if you had received a message that said before Week 12 there were three divisions in the NFL with a better record than the San Diego Chargers, your fantasy draft would likely have been quite a bit different.
(Of course, if I had the ability to send telegrams to my past self, fantasy football tips wouldn't be my first topic. It would finish somewhere behind "Drinking spiced rum straight from the bottle is not cool" and "For God's sake don't give her your real address")
That's where we find ourselves, with the 4-6 Chargers behind the entire AFC East, NFC East and NFC West heading into a huge game with the Indianapolis Colts. Other than the Colts, the Chargers still have to play two more playoff contending teams in the Buccaneers and Falcons, two bitter division rivals in Denver (one point loss in Week 2) and Kansas City (one point win in Week 10), and, oh yeah, the Raiders. OK, they'll beat the Raiders, but other than that there's not a gimme win for the rest of the season.
Fantasy-wise, that's good news. If you have Chargers on your team, you want to see fighting and scratching for every single game. More passing from Rivers, more Vincent Jackson, more Gates in the red zone and hopefully that famous late-season surge by LaDanian Tomlinson. A Chargers team that needs to bully its way into the playoffs -- and a Coach Norv Turner that could be seeing the axe if they don't -- is a great recipe for fantasy production. The Titans and Giants will be coasting by Week 14, while the Chargers will be clawing their way through every series. If you have Chargers on your fantasy team, they should be as focused and as productive over the next six weeks as they've been all season.
Um...that is...unless they lose to the Colts AND the Falcons and fall to 4-8. Then they're probably going to collapse into a miserable heap of apathy and finger-pointing. So you have maybe two weeks. After that, it could be a train wreck.
Hey, nobody said fantasy football was easy.