The San Diego Chargers have scored a grand total of six points in their last six quarters of play. The Kansas City Chiefs – well, they’re the Kansas City Chiefs. Will either team find the end zone when they clash this Thursday night?
Scoring touchdowns in the NFL is not easy. But you wouldn’t know it the
way football commentators talk these days; every time someone makes a mistake,
no matter how much pressure the other team’s defense is applying, that person
is called out for not making the play. Someone drops a bullet pass in double
coverage? Throw him to the lions already.
We also tend to pile on the worst teams in the NFL, forgetting that
“worst in the NFL” is still vastly superior to anywhere else. This is a great
way for jaded bettors to lose money. So I’m going to try to get through this
article without overstating how incredibly horrible the Chiefs are at playing
football.
Chief Complaint
Just the facts, ma’am: Kansas City is one of three teams with a 1-6
record, matching the Jacksonville Jaguars and Carolina Panthers. Among those
three, the Chiefs are the least profitable for NFL bettors, at 2-5 ATS. Kansas City also went
into Week 7 as the worst team in the NFL with the worst offense, according to
the advanced efficiency stats.
Despite their sputtering, the Chiefs have the OVER at 4-3 after seven
games. That’s because they also carried the No. 27-ranked defense into last
week’s tilt against the Oakland Raiders, which Oakland won 26-16 to barely
slide UNDER the total of 42.5 points.
Conveniently enough, that’s the total for our next installment of Thursday Night Football. NFL odds makers
opened business Sunday at 44 points and watched while everyone pounded the
UNDER; our early consensus numbers show 99 percent of side bets stampeding in
that direction.
Be sure to read my thoughts on the Chiefs vs. Chargers Opening Odds.
San Diego Zoo
Perhaps they’ve been swayed by the results of last Sunday’s game between
the Chargers and the Cleveland Browns. Soggy conditions at Browns Stadium helped
the home team pull off the 7-6 upset win without a single possession in the red
zone. San Diego had to settle for a pair of field goals on 265 total yards of
offense.
The Chargers (3-4 SU and ATS) had the No. 24-ranked team in efficiency
heading into that game with the No. 25-ranked offense. I doubt those rankings
will improve after the Cleveland loss. But the OVER is still profitable for San
Diego this year at 4-3, once again thanks to a poor defense that sat No. 21 in
the league rankings through Week 7.
Wetter is Better
Conditions at Qualcomm Stadium should be considerably drier for Thursday
night (8:20 p.m. ET, NFLN). The forecast calls for partly cloudy skies at
kick-off with a light breeze and temperatures in the high 60s. That doesn’t
necessarily mean the two offenses involved will have a field day, but it does
make it less likely the UNDER will prevail.
We’re also starting to dip into the low end of the spectrum with the
total slipping from 44 to 42.5. Sadly, the site where I got those records
against specific totals has pulled that information off the free Web, but I did
manage to jot down some of those results in my article about the total from
last week’s Bucs-Vikings game, which went OVER as I predicted. Among those
results: The OVER was 31-22 in six seasons’ worth of games with the total at
42.5.
I’m going to stick with the OVER for my Week 9 NFL picks. I can see the Chargers offense bouncing
back after the Cleveland debacle, and there’s a good chance Matt Cassel (41.47
QBR this year) will start at quarterback for the Chiefs instead of the concussed
Brady Quinn (14.33 QBR). Somebody will make it into the end zone this Thursday.
Probably.
NFL Pick: OVER 42.5