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SAN DIEGO – The San Diego Chargers appear to be bracing their fans for the possibility that LaDainian Tomlinson's brilliant eight-year run with the team could be over.

According to the team's Web site, club president Dean Spanos called the star running back Thursday to discuss reports that the Chargers might part with Tomlinson, who has been slowed by injuries the last two postseasons and will count $8.8 million against the salary cap next year.

"We talked about the situation and I just tried to explain everything that must be considered," Spanos said in a story detailing the offseason decisions the team must make. "I told him we haven't even started our discussions and won't for a while, so don't jump to any conclusions. And I told him I would call him personally to make sure he's aware of everything that's going on."

Tomlinson, the NFL MVP in 2006, missed the Chargers' playoff loss at Pittsburgh on Sunday with a groin injury. That, coupled with the lowest rushing total of his career, has led to speculation that the team might try to trade or even release L.T.

Tomlinson, who turns 30 in June, is under contract through 2011. Slowed by toe and groin injuries, Tomlinson gained a career-low 1,110 yards in 2008. Two seasons earlier, he set NFL records with 31 touchdowns — including 28 rushing — and 186 points.

The team declined to make Spanos available for further comment. Tomlinson didn't immediately respond to an e-mail seeking comment.

Six years ago, the Chargers were criticized for the way they got rid of star linebacker Junior Seau. Feeling Seau's play was in decline, the Chargers told him he was free to pursue a trade.

During a farewell news conference at the restaurant he owns, Seau said he had lobbied the team to release him so he could seek a free-agent deal. Describing himself as fired, unemployed and humbled, the 12-time Pro Bowler Seau was then traded to the Miami Dolphins.

In another unpopular move, the Chargers cut hard-hitting safety Rodney Harrison after the 2002 season because he'd been slowed by an ankle injury. The Patriots signed Harrison as a free agent and he ended up winning two Super Bowls with them.

Tomlinson hurt his groin in the regular-season finale against Denver on Dec. 28. He started the wild-card playoff game against Indianapolis but came out after scoring a touchdown early in the second quarter. The Chargers went on to beat the Colts 23-17 in overtime, carried by Darren Sproles' 328 all-purpose yards and two touchdowns, including the game-winner.

Tomlinson didn't suit up against Pittsburgh, which beat the Chargers 35-24. The Steelers held Sproles, who'll become an unrestricted free agent, to 15 yards on 11 carries.

After the Broncos game, the Chargers announced that Tomlinson had a strained groin. Reports surfaced the day of the playoff game against the Colts that Tomlinson had a detached tendon that connects one of his groin muscles to his pubic bone.

Four days later, Tomlinson — long the franchise's most brutally honest employee — confirmed that he had a detached tendon and practically scoffed at the team's public diagnosis.

"If it was a strain I'd be able to play with it, trust me," Tomlinson said. "A lot of guys have strains."

General manager A.J. Smith was livid that the severity of Tomlinson's injury was revealed and called out the player's camp.

A year ago, Tomlinson missed most of the AFC championship game at New England with a sprained ligament in his left knee. He stood glumly on the sidelines huddled in a parka, wearing his helmet with a tinted visor. Some people criticized Tomlinson's toughness, but the Chargers themselves had provided an overly optimistic update on his injury, announcing in the press box early in the second quarter that Tomlinson had a "sore knee" and that he "can return."

Perhaps wanting to keep up some gamesmanship, the Chargers never updated that report even though Tomlinson and coach Norv Turner later said they knew by early in the second quarter that the running back wouldn't return.

"It's obvious that I couldn't play," Tomlinson said afterward. "If I could have played, I would have been in there."

Tomlinson's agent, Tom Condon, has declined comment.

Condon clients have been at odds with Smith in the past, notably Marty Schottenheimer, Donnie Edwards and Eli Manning.

Schottenheimer was fired as San Diego's coach in February 2007 because of what Spanos called a "dysfunctional situation" with Smith. Edwards, who led the Chargers in tackles for five straight seasons, fell into disfavor with Smith, apparently for asking one time too many for a contract extension, and was allowed to leave as an unrestricted free agent following the 2006 season.

Three days before the 2004 draft, Smith revealed that Archie Manning, through Condon, didn't want his son, Eli, to be taken by the Chargers with the No. 1 pick overall.

Smith picked Manning anyway, then dealt him to the New York Giants for Philip Rivers and a haul of picks that he used to select kicker Nate Kaeding in that draft and star outside linebacker Shawne Merriman in the first round of the 2005 draft.

Eli Manning was MVP of the Giants' Super Bowl upset of New England last year.

After the 2005 season, Smith chose to keep Rivers over Drew Brees, another Condon client.

PITTSBURGH – There is a home-field advantage in the NFL playoffs after all, and it belongs to the Pittsburgh Steelers.

Pittsburgh Steelers running back Willie Parker (39) breaks a tackle by San Diego Chargers defensive back

Now they've got to prove it means something against the team they despise like no other, and in the game they lose at home like no one else.

The Steelers, owners of the NFL's best home-field record since the 1970 NFL merger, shook off a 7-0 deficit barely two minutes into the game, controlled pint-sized playmaker Darren Sproles and returned some normalcy to the postseason by beating the San Diego Chargers 35-24 in an AFC divisional game Sunday.

With a now-healthy Willie Parker running for 146 yards and two touchdowns, Ben Roethlisberger ignoring his late-season concussion to throw for a score and lead an efficient offense, the Steelers did what the favored Titans, Panthers and Giants couldn't do by winning at home. It was the first time since 1971 that three road teams won during a single playoff weekend, and the Steelers made certain that road teams didn't go 4-for-4.

"We talked about that, all the home teams — the No. 1 and 2 seeds — weren't playing as well," said Santonio Holmes, who got Pittsburgh going with a 67-yard punt return touchdown in the first quarter. "But we knew the road to the Super Bowl can run through Pittsburgh when we saw Baltimore won (at Tennessee). It was time to turn it on."

This will be the Steelers' seventh AFC title game, and sixth in Pittsburgh, in 15 seasons. They were 2-4 in the previous six, with an unprecedented four losses in five tries at home during the 1994-2004 seasons.

The Steelers had the worst offense of any playoff team coming in, only to put up 35 points to support the NFL's top-ranked defense. Now, it's time for Ravens vs. Steelers Part III next Sunday — the third and most intriguing matchup this season between the can't-stand-each other AFC North rivals.

"What else would you expect, us and the Ravens," Steelers coach Mike Tomlin said. "It would be big if it was a scrimmage. This is for the AFC championship."

Pittsburgh won the earlier two games, 23-20 in overtime in Pittsburgh — when the Ravens supposedly put bounties on several Steelers players — and 13-9 during the Dec. 14 rematch in Baltimore that secured the divisional title.

"We have a tough, tough, tough team coming in here," Brett Keisel said.

The Ravens-Steelers games were two of the NFL's most physical this season, with injuries all around, and playing to go to the Super Bowl will only ratchet up the intensity, physicality and, no doubt, the dislike.

There was much to like for the Steelers in this one as they made certain that the Chargers' stars from their 23-17 wild-card upset of the Colts didn't repeat their performances and allow San Diego to become the first team to go .500 during the season and then win twice in the postseason.

The Steelers spotted San Diego a 7-0 lead on Vincent Jackson's acrobatic 41-yard catch of Philip Rivers' pass four plays into the game, but, like San Diego's 7-0 lead in its bizarre 11-10 loss in Pittsburgh on Nov. 16, the Chargers couldn't make it stand up as 1,100-yard rusher LaDainian Tomlinson sat out with a groin injury.

Sproles, coming off his all-around 328-yard game against the Colts, wasn't much of a factor despite a 63-yard kickoff return and a 62-yard TD catch in the game's final two minutes after Pittsburgh had opened a 35-17 lead.

Sproles was held to 15 yards on 11 carries after rushing for 105 the week before and. He had 91 yards on five catches and 164 yards on five kickoff returns.

"I don't think he ever broke one (run). We contained him pretty good," the Steelers' LaMarr Woodley said.

Of course, it's tough to score when a team doesn't have the ball.

The Chargers had the ball for only 17 seconds of the third quarter to the Steelers' 14:43, thanks to a nearly eight-minute scoring drive that ended with Roethlisberger's 8-yard TD pass to Heath Miller. Rivers also threw an interception on a first down from the Pittsburgh 23, and a Steelers punt bounced off Eric Weddle's helmet, with Pittsburgh recovering.

"We were standing on the sideline and it was like, 'We were in for one play in the quarter and it was an interception,'" Rivers said. "There was a little bit of disbelief. ... You can't call it a fluke, those guys made plays, but that was crazy."

Given the 11-10 game, it's hardly unusual this game was ... well, a little unusual. The Steelers, one of the NFL's worst return teams, scored on their first punt return score since Holmes' 65-yarder against Carolina on Dec. 17, 2006.

After that, keeping Rivers and Sproles off the field so long allowed Pittsburgh to stretch its lead from 14-10 late in the second quarter on Parker's 3-yard run to 28-10 early in the fourth on Gary Russell's 1-yard run. Weddle was flagged for a 44-yard interference penalty before Russell scored.

Rivers went 21-of-35 for 308 yards and three touchdowns on a 25-dgreee day as snow flurries briefly coated the field — hey, this isn't southern California — but the Chargers failed to improve on one of the NFL's most curious records. They're 0-13 in Pittsburgh during the regular season, but previously were 2-0 there in the playoffs.

The Steelers weren't as dominant defensively as they were while holding eight teams to 10 or fewer points during the season, but they also weren't as rusty as the other three home teams this weekend and now are 13-4. The Chargers ended 9-9, following an unlikely five-game winning streak that came after they looked to be out of playoff contention at 4-8.

Roethlisberger, again looking like the can't-shake-me quarterback who led three road playoff wins in three weeks as the Steelers won the Super Bowl three years ago, converted three times on third down plays of 8 yards to go or longer ahead of his TD pass to Miller. He went 17-of-26 for 181 yards as the Steelers outgained the Chargers 342-290.

That scary concussion Roethlisberger sustained against Cleveland?

"It was a non-issue for us," said Tomlin, who won his first playoff game as Pittsburgh's coach.

And for the supposed difficulty of beating a team three times in a season, as the Steelers will attempt to do against Baltimore, Tomlin said, "I personally don't subscribe to that hocus-pocus."

For all of Roethlisberger's playmaking — on one play, he even threw a block to help Holmes pick up extra yardage — it was a healthy Parker who made the major difference in a Steelers offense that was the worst statistically of the 12 playoff teams.

Parker, who fought through knee and shoulder injuries during his first sub-1,000-yard season as a starter, had his most productive game since running for 138 yards and three TDs against Houston in the Sept. 7 opener.

"We knew we could do that," Holmes said. "That's Steelers football, run the ball. Pound them down, once we get them down we can do whatever we want to do with them."