One of the most fun debates of this NFL season is: Which is the bigger surprise, the Pittsburgh Steelers or the San Diego Chargers? The biggest surprise, actually, is that there are two teams in contention for the title of “Biggest Surprise.” Over the last few years we’ve gotten used to one team coming out of nowhere to make a Super Bowl run, but this is something new. In a fairer world, it would be the Steelers vs. the Chargers in the AFC championship game; then at least one of them would be rewarded for their splendid turnaround efforts.

That’s not likely to happen, of course. The Chargers have the misfortune this season to be playing in the conference with nearly all the best NFL teams. This isn’t to say that the Chargers can’t win it all; they look capable of beating anybody right now. But since they probably won’t have home field advantage if they make it to the AFC title game, they’ll probably have to play an Eastern team in the cold.

Still, it seems churlish to disregard their chances. Yesterday, against an Eastern team and in cold weather, they won their eighth straight game with almost ridiculous ease, beating the Cleveland Browns 21-0. If you watched it on television, it was a snoozer, interesting only for an opportunity to study how a team can go from 3-11 at this point last year to 11-3.

Start with the offensive line, because that’s what coach Marty Schottenheimer did before the season began. It may well be that the most valuable Charger this year is offensive line coach Hudson Houck, who earned Super Bowl rings with the 1993 and ’95 Dallas Cowboys after honing their front five into the most effective unit in the league, one equally adept at both run and pass blocking.

Houck has brought the same mentality to the Chargers. He chooses his offensive linemen for intelligence and what used to be called “coachability” – the Cowboys, in their Super Bowl years, committed the fewest holding penalties of any team in the league, and the Chargers lead the league in that category this year – with size being a secondary concern. That this year’s Chargers’ front five weigh in at over 300 pounds each is just a bonus. Interestingly, the Chargers’ offensive line has turned itself around without the player many said they should get, Robert Gallery, the 325-pound tackle from Iowa who ended up with Oakland.

Not a single starter on their offensive line played for the team last year – no wonder the Chargers seem to have come out of nowhere. The biggest surprises are the guards, Mike Goff and Kris Dielman, who both weigh in about 310 pounds. Goff was regarded, after six years with the Bengals, as a solid but undistinguished veteran. The same thing could be said for offensive tackle Roman Oben, who at 32 is at a rather advanced age to be starting over with a new team. Tackle Shane Olivea and center Nick Hardwick, in contrast, are rookies.

The most remarkable aspect of the Chargers’ offensive line is Antonio Gates’s emergence. Gates is more than just the best tight end in the NFL – he should be given serious consideration for this year’s MVP award. After 14 games, he has caught 74 passes for 915 yards and 12 touchdowns, averaging 12.4 yards per catch. Along with the coming together of the offensive line, Gates is the principal reason why quarterback Drew Brees looks like a mature veteran instead of the second coming of Ryan Leaf.

In the second quarter yesterday, with San Diego up 7-0 on a slippery field, Gates flattened an overmatched Cleveland linebacker, streaked out in the open, and hauled in a 72-yard scoring pass from Brees. Essentially, that was the game.

As the field conditions worsened, the San Diego defense had its way with the hapless Browns offense – rookie quarterback Luke McCown completed just 11 of 27 passes, only one longer than 13 yards. Meanwhile, Chargers running backs LaDainian Tomlinson and Jesse Chatman, negotiating behind their agile front wall, ground out 160 yards on 40 carries, using up nearly 34 of the game’s 60 minutes.

Statistics don’t show how effective the Chargers really were yesterday. It’s easy to dismiss the game as the victory of a strong team over an incredibly bad one; Cleveland, after all, was held to just 17 yards last week against Buffalo. But the telling point is this: Last year at this time the Browns were 4-10, one game better than the Chargers.

Brees was able to win this game with just six passes; that’s the fewest throws by a complete-game quarterback in any victory this year. Gates, after his spectacular TD, never had another pass thrown to him all afternoon. He spent most of the second half blocking for his runners, which is supposed to be the weakest part of a tight end’s game. Gates’s success didn’t appear in his own stats but in those of Tomlinson and Chatman.

Brees is not going to get by with just six passes against Indianapolis next week, but the Carrier Dome’s conditions should guarantee a smooth-running Charger offense. For the Chargers, who haven’t played a particularly demanding schedule, it will be not only their toughest, but their most important game so far this year.

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Bill Parcells used an interesting defensive strategy in containing Eagles quarterback Donovan McNabb yesterday. Most teams try to blitz mobile quarterbacks like McNabb and Michael Vick up the middle, trying to force them to the outside, where they have fewer targets to throw to. In several third down situations yesterday, the Cowboys did not blitz at all; they showed blitz and then dropped back into the passing lanes, giving McNabb plenty of time but few easy targets. Then, almost on cue, when McNabb would start to run, the extra linebackers and defensive backs would move up to meet him.

That’s a dangerous game to play, as it gave the Eagles’ wideouts, particularly Terrell Owns, an extra split second to break free for a possible big gainer. But the disciplined Cowboys played it well and held the Eagles to 12 points in the loss. Expect to see other NFC teams use the same strategy against the Eagles in the playoffs, particularly because McNabb has shown time and again how effectively he can burn the blitz.