Gambling Matchup Week 10 – Oakland Raiders vs San Diego Chargers
The reeling Raiders head into San Diego to face the Chargers on Thursday night. Both teams are looking to get back on track this season as they haven’t been playing well as of late.
When: Thursday, 8:20 PM EST
Where: Qualcomm Stadium, San Diego, CA
TV: NFL Network
LINE: -7 (San Diego), O/U 48
Carson Palmer looked pretty good in his first start for the Raiders. Too bad the Raiders’ defense didn’t bother to show up for the game against the Broncos.
They allowed 38 points to a team that hasn’t scored more than 24 all season long. Their rushing defense was gashed all day long, and to make things worse, they let two players rack up over 100 yards on ground. Allowing 299 yards rushing overall.
To Oakland’s defense, they were a minus there biggest offensive weapon in running back Darren McFadden for the game, but Michael Bush played very well in his absence. He ran for 96 yards on just 19 carries.
To make the loss sting even more, they blew a 24-14 lead late in the third quarter. Then Denver went on to score 24 straight points in the last 17 minutes of the game.
Meanwhile, the Chargers’ defense had some problems of its own. They managed to put up 38 points against Green Bay, which was nine more points than they had scored all year, but the down side was that they allowed the Packers to roll up 45 of their own.
Quarterback Philip Rivers, tuned in an epic performance, tossing for a total of six touchdowns on the day. The problem is that two of them went in favor of the Packers. He threw a total of three picks on the day. [soliloquy id=”82219″]
As for Thursday night’s match-up, these are two teams that do things completely different on the offensive side of the ball.
The Raiders like to get things done on the ground. They boast the No. 3 rushing offense in the NFL. The problem is that it looks like D-Mac is going to miss another game. They will again be forced to rely upon Michael Bush. Which shouldn’t be too big of a setback providing he can repeat Sunday’s performance.
On the other hand you have the Chargers that like to get things done through the air. They have the No. 4 passing offense in the league thus far, but that number is a bit misleading however, as Rivers has had a very mediocre if not subpar year so far. Of course, that’s by River’s standards.
The 8-year veteran has thrown for nearly 2,500 yards this season. The problem with that is that he has thrown 14 interceptions to just 11 touchdowns compared to 30 TDs and 13 INTs in 2010. That is something that he needs to fix really quickly if the Chargers are going to get back into the thick of the playoff race, and win the AFC West.
Matt’s Prediction: Chargers 27, Raiders 20
If McFadden doesn’t play, which it looks as though that will be the case. It is hard to look past the Chargers for this one. They aren’t going to play this poorly all season long as history shows and this is probably the week that they will get things back on track.
Rivers has to find his comfort zone, and avoid turnovers.
If he does, I expect one to go to the Bolts.
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