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Pats, Chargers set to meet for the fourth time in 22 months

In the NFL, there are plenty of manufactured rivalries. In those phony “grudge-matches,” the pregame hyperbole falls short, and the contest inevitably ends with pats on the back and promises to get together in the offseason.

Then, there’s the Patriots and Chargers. Since 2005, each one of their games has disintegrated into a blood feud that has produced some great theater: There was San Diego’s 41-17 stomping of New England in 2005 at Gillette Stadium, sparking angry words from quarterback Tom Brady toward Chargers coach Marty Schottenheimer. There was the bitterly contested 2006 AFC divisional playoff in San Diego — which ultimately cost Schottenheimer his job — that ended with the Patriots dancing at midfield, much to the dismay of LaDainian Tomlinson. Last season, the story continued when New England vaporized the Chargers 38-14 during the regular season, and followed that up with a 21-12 win in the AFC Championship Game.

When you add in the fact that Sunday will mark their fourth meeting in the last 22 months, you have the makings of a feud that rivals the Iron Sheik and Brian Blair or Kobe and Shaq. What is it that they say about familiarity breeding contempt?

“I think there has been a lot said over the matchups we have had over the last four years,” said Patriots left tackle Matt Light when asked about the Chargers. “We definitely have familiarity with them. It does feel like a Colts-type game where we end up playing each other every year.”

“It almost seems like a division game. It does,” Patriots coach Bill Belichick said. “[It's like] we end up playing them twice a year. It's a little bit like the Colts. It feels like we’ve seen a lot of them, even though they're not in our division.”

The playoff defeats are burned into San Diego’s collective memory, but some Chargers say that because the stakes aren’t nearly as high as those playoff games of years past, any thoughts about gaining real revenge on the Patriots will be minimized.

“It’s not going to do us any good — it’s not the playoffs, just a regular-season game,” San Diego center Nick Hardwick told reporters earlier in the week. “It’s not like if we win we get to go play in the Super Bowl. It’s not like if we win we get to play in the divisional playoff game.”

Instead, the Chargers will be looking to simply save their season. It’s too early to push the panic button, but a 2-3 start has left them in a big hole in the AFC playoff race. Forget the idea of getting some payback for past postseason losses. They just want to get a much-needed victory.

“It’s just another football game,” Tomlinson said. “We can’t make it bigger than what it is. It’s the sixth game on the schedule and it happens to be the Patriots. So that’s the way we’re going to approach it. We can’t talk about anything, really and truly, in the past because we haven’t beaten them. For us, it’s just another game.”