The Chargers have proven time and time again that they can control the line of scrimmage vs. the Broncos. Side with San Diego in Denver on Sunday afternoon.
Some of the biggest over-reactions in any sports calendar year come after the first week of NFL play. It is the only sport left where the betting public is still a significant factor in the setting of the lines, and that puts some outstanding situations into our laps. This is one of them, now that we can take the Chargers at +1.
San Diego buried Denver over eight quarters last year. The two games were won by a combined 64-6, with the scoreboard a pretty accurate reflection of what was happening on the field – the Chargers won the total offense by 297 yards. And with San Diego only scoring seven fourth quarter points, we can see that both games could have been even worse. And 2007 was not really anything new – the previous season brought a pair of wins by a total of 36 points, so the Chargers own a 4-0 advantage with Philip Rivers as the starting QB in this series, winning by an average of 23.5 per game. But now here come the Week 1 results in which these two teams fell a combined 35.5 off of the oddsmakers projections, and that leads to the usual leaping to the wrong conclusions.
The Broncos problem in this matchup last season, and in general, was a soft defensive front that could be controlled at the point of attack. So what did we see in Monday’s 41-14 rout of Oakland? A soft defensive front that could be controlled at the point of attack. Raider RBs Justin Fargas and Darren McFadden rambled for 143 yards at 5.3 per carry, but they could not run the ball more because their own defense took them out of the game. We rarely find teams in a favorite’s role that have such a negative matchup in that key area of the game.
Meanwhile there was nothing to be particularly alarmed about in that San Diego loss to Carolina. LaDanian Tomlinson ran for 97 yards at 4.6 per carry and Philip Rivers threw three touchdown passes without an interception. The defense was a disappointment, but that helps from a mental standpoint here. It creates a “backs to the wall” setting from a talented unit, and now that they know that Shawne Merriman is gone for the campaign they can bring the proper focus to make the adjustments.
The DL of Jamal Williams, Igor Olshansky and Luis Castillo has dominated the Bronco OL in those recent routs, and with the latter still trying to build chemistry with Casey Wiegmann at center (Tom Nalen will miss at least another week) and rookie Ryan Clady at RT, we can confidently back the Chargers to control the trenches on both sides of the ball.
We don’t find this price range often when one side controls the line of scrimmage the way that we can project this flow to be.
Free Pick: Chargers +1 (-110)