By Charles Jay
Last week the New England Patriots found the Green Bay Packer offense a little bit too much to handle. On Sunday night they are going to run into another hot quarterback as they face off against Philip Rivers and the San Diego Chargers in NFL betting action that will get underway at 8:30 PM ET at QUALCOMM Stadium in San Diego.
San Diego had lost three games in a row, including a humiliating 37-0 defeat in Miami, before going into the bye week. Now they have won their last three games, including a stirring comeback victory over the Baltimore Ravens last Sunday (34-33). Rivers has completed 75% of his passes over this three-game stretch. And he is now 69% accurate for the season.
New England was the hottest team in the NFL going into the game at Lambeau Field, having won seven straight contests. But they could not keep Aaron Rodgers and his friends under control, giving up 478 yards to the Green Bay offense. Currently New England is 9-3 straight-up and 7-5 against the football pointspread. They are still pretty much in the driver’s seat for home-field advantage in the AFC playoffs. But they cannot really afford a loss to the Chargers, who are one game behind the Denver Broncos in the AFC West with their 8-4 straight-up mark (6-6 ATS).
In the Sunday night NFL betting odds that have been placed on this game at Vietbet, the Patriots are laying points on the road:
New England Patriots -3.5
San Diego Chargers +3.5
Over 52 points -110
Under 52 points -110
Certainly no one is going to consider San Diego’s receivers is dangerous as those of Green Bay, but Rivers knows how to spread the ball around to Keenan Allen (72 catches), Malcom Floyd and Antonio Gates. The problem with the Chargers is that they have not been able to gain balance with the running game on a consistent basis. Maybe they can do that against New England; maybe they can’t. But there are a fair number of NFL bettors who look upon this game is an aerial shootout.
But the Patriots will probably have more success running the football, especially if they can make more use of LeGarrette Blount, who has averaged 6.2 yards per carry since the Patriots picked him up on waivers. Rob Gronkowski had 98 yards receiving last week, that accounted for a healthy portion of Brady’s 245 passing yards. Vietbet customers are still trying to reconcile themselves with the fact that New England beats itself with penalties so much. They have been flagged 99 times on the season, and coach Bill Belichick is furious about that.
One thing NFL bettors should take note of is that after the game in Green Bay, the Pats did not go back home and then travel out to the West Coast. They flew straight to San Diego, where they have spent the entire week. But if there is one technical trend that sticks out, it’s that New England has dropped eight straight decisions against the football pointspread on grass.
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