Los Angeles Chargers at Las Vegas Raiders
The Chargers met up with their NFC counterpart in terms of heartbreaking losses, the Falcons, on Sunday. The pendulum swung in favor of Los Angeles, which parlayed a late Matt Ryan interception into a three-point win over Atlanta. Meanwhile, the Raiders came up significantly short in a test against another postseason-contending squad in the Colts, dropping a 44-27 decision that led to the firing of defensive coordinator Paul Guenther on Sunday evening.
This matchup seemingly sets up well for the Chargers to achieve offensive balance, as the failures that led to Guenther’s dismissal have mostly been evenly distributed between the front seven and the secondary. The Raiders are allowing per-game averages of 128.1 rushing yards and 256.1 passing yards, with both figures ranking them in the bottom 10 of the league. With Austin Ekeler back to full health and Justin Herbert continuing to play well — albeit a bit less prolifically on the stat sheet than earlier in the season — Los Angeles should have its choice on how to attack, with the only x-factor being how many new wrinkles interim coordinator Rod Marinelli introduces.
The Raiders offense has a particularly good matchup for its ground game, as the Bolts have given up 120.0 rushing yards per game and a bloated 4.92 RB yards per carry. Conversely, they’ve often been nails against the pass, yielding the seventh-fewest passing yards per contest (217.1). The Chargers also held Derek Carr to his second-lowest yardage total (not counting an excessive wind game versus the Browns that made passing nearly impossible) of the season (165) while yielding a minuscule 56.5 percent completion rate to him in a Week 9 loss.
The oddsmakers expect a relatively close and high-scoring game akin to Las Vegas’ 31-26 win in the first meeting, as the line currently sits at ().