NFL: San Francisco 49ers vs San Diego Chargers matchup analysis

The disappointing 49ers will host the partially disappointing Chargers in a pure Californian derby, this game mean so much for the Chargers who desperately need a win after 2 wasted games in a row at home, the 9ers are eliminated from playoffs race due to a awful losses against teams who have losing records, they shown those kinds of problems especially at home.

49ers:

Keys: Offensively with the absence of Hyde and Gore still questionable their running game needs a miracle to attack the tough Chargers defense and counting the importance of the running numbers for the 9ers especially on Harbough era this will be a difficult hard to handle for the coaching stuff, this also will limitate Kaepernick's read options and play actions which are the most important things in their entire offense so they will need to be perfect on passing game to move the ball and a key to do that should be target more TE Vernon Davis who should have a big game due to his speed and no Chargers' LBs can match him. On defense the absence of the SF's tackling machine MLB Borland will be big especially against running game, to be successful they need to avoid to put Rivers on rhythm attacking him with a very good pass rushing relying on the 2 OLBs, against the running game the only thing they can hope due to all the absences is hope that RE Smith will be dominant at the line of screemage to force SD's defense to double him up a leave someother else free to tackle the opponents RB.

Chargers:
Keys: On offense they must be a way more consistent and productive than the last 2 games and to do that against a defense with all this injuries the key will be attack the position that they 9ers are in trouble: with the exception of Justin Smith the other 2 d-linemen will be the weakest position along with MLBs of all SF's  team, it means that they are vulnerable against the running game and with the ebsence of the very fragile RB Ryan Mathews it will be Brandon Oliver to take the majority of the runs fot the Chargers, with the struggles of passing game the success of Oliver and Brown will be a key to take the pressure of Rivers and give him the chance to be effective also with play actions, screens and short release routes. The absence of Keenan Allen will be tough for Rivers but he still has good receivers like Floyd who will be taken by parrish Cox in a very interesting matchup, Royal that with his speed will be a huge threat for the 9ers defense and with TE Antonio Gates who probably will be covered by SS Bethea due to all MLBs injuries, that's why i would like to see Gates receive more especially in crossing route where he will get the huge advantage of his size.

On defense they have to keep Kaepernick in the pocket and to do that they will have to sacrifice a player to spying him all game long, i would execute a double coverage on Davis and be aware of the physical skills of the Wideouts especially  with their good but small CBs if you compare to WRs like Anquan Boldin who has a TE kind of body.

The final result of this game will be: 49ers 13 Chargers 24 with Gates as the MVP and Justin Smith like the X factor who could change the game for SF.