Divisional Weekend/Game No. 4

Sunday morning dawned cold and snowy in Pittsburgh.

Perfect weather for the Steelers? A real disadvantage for the visitors from SoCal?

Not necessarily. History shows us that when it comes to having the home-field advantage in the playoffs, one team that frequently can’t seem to cash that chip at the tournament table are the Pittsburgh Steelers.

The Steelers and Chargers will battle at Heinz Field with kickoff at 3:30 p.m. The broadcast is on CBS.

Pittsburgh faces quite a challenge with these Chargers, who are trying to make history. With a victory in the snow, San Diego would become the first 8-8 team to win two games in the playoffs and it would make them the first team with fewer than 10 victories to make the conference championship game in 12 seasons (Jacksonville in 1996 went .

Could the Chargers be this season’s version of the New York Giants, a team that struggled through the end of the regular season a year ago before tearing through the playoffs en route to the Super Bowl title?

“Why not us?” QB Philip Rivers said.

The Steelers hope to have the answers to why it won’t be the Chargers. The league’s No. 1 defense has dragged the team’s sluggish offense throughout this season. This Pittsburgh team is a veteran group, just two years removed from a Super Bowl championship.

But that title run came on the road. At Heinz Field, the Steelers are just 3-3 in the post-season, including losing to Jacksonville last year 31-29.

“I think we just have to play confidently, play the way we play in all three phases,” veteran receiver Hines Ward told the Pittsburgh media this week. “Most of us have been around long enough to know that it’s the playoffs and that you can’t just show up and win. It takes a great game and I think people know that. We’ve added some young guys who get it now — like LaMarr Woodley and Lawrence Timmons. Everyone realizes what it takes at this stage, control the ball, don’t turn it over, do what you do.”

What the Chargers do is move the ball on offense, especially through the air on the arm of Rivers. The weather conditions and his groin injury will likely make LaDainian Tomlinson a pre-game scratch, making the passing game even more important. It will have to come in weather conditions that will not be ideal. The weather service says it will feel like 18 degrees when the game starts, and that temperature will go down as the game goes on and night settles over the stadium.

The game marks the first time San Diego has faced a 3-4 defense since they played the Steelers back on November 16. The scheme always forces offense to adjust, but none more so than the Pittsburgh version and what the Steelers do out of that alignment that allows them to attack the quarterback. It’s the zone-blitz approach that makes it hard to identify who might be coming on the pass rush and who might be in coverage.

“You just have to be ready to rotate and know where the center of the line is going,” said Chargers tackle Marcus McNeill to the San Diego media. “One thing about zone blitzes is that they always have help coming from somewhere else. They do a good job of disguising where the help is coming from, so you have to pick up on certain keys that clue you in to where the blitz is coming from. They’ve had a bye, so they’ll definitely throw some wrinkles in. You have to go through the tape over and over again to know where the zone blitz is coming from.”

An opponent does not have to score a lot of points to be the Steelers, not that they could against that defense. But in seven games against teams that made the playoffs, Pittsburgh’s offense scored a total of eight touchdowns. Then again, one of the two games in which Pittsburgh didn’t score a TD was the 11-10 victory over the Chargers.

INJURIES

SAN DIEGO – Hard to believe that Tomlinson will play. He called himself doubtful earlier in the week, and in the weather conditions and the poor playing surface at Heinz Field. Everyone else, including TE Antonio Gates with an ankle injury should play.

PITTSBURGH - The question was about Ben Roethlisberger who suffered a concussion in the regular season finale. But two weeks of no games has given him time to heal. He says he’s fine. Otherwise, there are no serious injury problems with the Steelers.