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The altitude is a bigger concern than the Chargers. Running around at 7,000 ft. is going to be very rough on the OL and the DL. Long drives might be impossible late in the game, without some referee interference.
If we are smart, we'll run the ball about 50% of the time in the first half; run blocking is just easier than pass blocking, and throw relatively short passes for the first 30 minutes.
However, I would have Tyreek run around a lot, as he's probably in the best cardiovascular shape of anyone on the team. Wear out his CBs/safeties to set them up for the 2nd half. And we have too many speed guys plus Kelce for them to really cover. But we do have to be more efficient scoring TDs. I would expect our offense to look pretty similar to the Chiefs' first TD drive yesterday.
On defense, obviously we need to stop their backs early, because it's probably going to be a lot harder to do in the 2nd half, once our DL/LBs are half-gassed from the altitude.
Put them in 3rd-long, and get after Rivers early and often. He's not much more mobile than Flacco, so this shouldn't be too much of a problem.
Add in the fact that Rivers tends to implode in big games, so this really shouldn't be that tough a game for us. Another thing to remember is that the older you are, the tougher it is to perform at high altitude. Rivers is going to probably begin to fade about middle 3rd Q.
Overall, I think we're going to see some sloppy football, simply because of the altitude. By the 4th quarter, I'd bet the OL/DL for each team are going to be in agony. Probably the LBs as well. We're probably going to see some players trip over grass, probably a lot of holding by everyone, etc.
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