Krause: Chargers a bigger challenge than expected, but Pats should still prevail

So ? can a team whose three main offensive players are less than 100 percent healthy match wits and talents with perhaps the mightiest offensive juggernaut in NFL history?Why not?Will it?Probably not.But let’s not just give the American Football Conference title to the New England Patriots Sunday. They’ll have to earn it because the San Diego Chargers are not going to just hand it over.In this matchup, San Diego has nothing to lose. The Chargers aren’t supposed to be here. Win or lose, they can go back to the West Coast knowing that they’ve validated themselves and their coach, Norv Turner – whose reputation as an NFL head man isn’t the greatest.You can probably count on one hand the number of pundits from either coast who give the Chargers any kind of shot at all Sunday. They’d have been underdogs even with everyone healthy.But here’s the deal. I’ve watched a lot of games where the team that’s been given no shot at all hangs around and makes things tough. More often than not (including last Sunday in Indianapolis), these teams find a way to win if they’ve been hanging around for the whole game. The Patriots actually did that last year in San Diego, if you recall.Nothing’s ever as it seems. There is always a built-in, unknown X-factor in these games. Sometimes it’s coaching. Sometimes a player you’d least expect rises to the occasion and plays the game of his life (the way the Chargers’ reserves did last weekend in Indianapolis).If past is prologue, fans should expect the Chargers to hang around for as long as possible; and the Patriots should be wary of letting them hang around too long. A team such as San Diego, with absolutely nothing to lose from the get-go, cannot be allowed to gain confidence and momentum in a game of this magnitude. The pressure’s squarely on the Patriots, because their historic season is at stake every time they take the field.But here’s another deal: The Patriots do not blink. They’ll stare you down. They’ve handled every upstart this season, some with chilling dispatch, others just by wearing them down, and, at least on one occasion, by sheer good fortune (the Ravens game).If there was ever a team better equipped to handle an opponent playing with house money, I’ve never seen it. They take every bit of bad fortune and turn it around in their favor. Caught cheating? No problem. Veteran defensive back gets suspended for four games for taking human growth hormone? So what!What? The wide receiver most responsible for the historic season – after quarterback Tom Brady, that is – has received a restraining order, and the story breaks the week of the AFC title game? Not to worry. Randy Moss will probably catch six passes, three of them for touchdowns, Sunday.Rarely do teams come along with the chops to knock off all pretenders. But it looks like this Patriots team could be one of them.There’s every reason to smell an upset here. There’s every reason to rationalize how a team like San Diego could come in here and spring a huge upset.But it’s not going to happen. The Patriots will win, and play in the Super Bowl for the fourth time this decade.Steve Krause is sports editor of The Item.