Monday Night Football: Denver Broncos at San Diego Chargers

Added on Nov 22, 2010 by Jack Thurman in

NFL

Week 11 of the NFL season ends with a matchup that no doubt looked a lot better ‘on paper’ when the schedule was being put together than it does now. This edition of Monday Night Football features a pair of underacheiving teams as the Denver Broncos head to SoCal to take on the San Diego Chargers. Denver is 3-6 SU/ATS though the Broncos are coming off one of their best performances of the season as they beat Kansas City at home last week. San Diego has won and covered two straight after spending much of the early season finding ways to beat themselves.

Denver Broncos at San Diego Chargers
November 21, 2010 5:30 PM Pacific

Don’t be mistaken into interpreting the Broncos solid win over Kansas City as a ‘buy’ sign–they were coming off a bye week and off that embarrassing blowout loss to Oakland and a listless performance against the 49ers in England. That was likely as good as the Broncos can play–at least defensively where Denver ranks #26 in total defense including #19 in passing defense and #31 in rushing defense. As we’ve heard about incessantly for the past few weeks the Chargers have a top ranked offensive and defensive unit–they’re #1 in total defense (274.7 yards per game), #1 in passing defense (185.2 YPG), #3 in rush defense (89.4 YPG) though #15 in scoring defense which is more the fault of turnovers on offense and bad special teams play. They also have the #1 ranked total offense (420.2 YPG), the #1 passing offense (312.4 YPG) and the #4 scoring offense (26.6 PPG).

Basically all San Diego needed to change is to reduce mistakes which they’ve done. Plus they’ve had a tendency to start slow under Norv Turner–we’ll remind you of the numbers: under Turner the Chargers are 28-9 SU and 23-13-1 ATS from Game 6 on. Since 2008, they’re 4-8 SU/ATS in October. The Chargers are off a bye week and the Broncos have been a very poor investment in divisional games of late–they’re currently on a 8-18-1 ATS run and a brutal 5-14 SU run dating back to last year. Some concern about a potential lookahead spot for the Chargers–they’ll play the Indianapolis Colts off a short week–but we don’t have much confidence in Denver’s ability to compete on the road. We expect the San Diego offense to roll, covering this spread and sending the game Over the total.

Bet San Diego Chargers -9 over Denver Broncos
Bet San Diego/Denver Over 50