Thursday night football in the NFL begins tonight as the Oakland Raiders travel to take on the San Diego Chargers. The game is scheduled for an 8:20 pm kickoff and it will be televised nationally on the NFL Network. The Chargers and Raiders both sit at 4-4 on the season. San Diego is favored by 7 points in this contest and the total is being set at 47.5 for the game. This game marks the first Thursday night contest of the season, which will happen for the next six weeks in the NFL.
Free Analysis: The Chargers have lost three straight games, two of which were on the road. San Diego dropped games to the Jets, Chiefs and at home last week to the Packers. San Diego actually started the season very well with a 4-1 record. Historically, this team starts slow and comes on hot toward the end of the year. For whatever reason they started hot to start this year but have fallen on hard times. Oakland will be playing without RB Darren McFadden and also have fallen on hard times, dropping two straight games. This game has major implications in the AFC West race as three teams are tied with 4-4 records. The Raiders are a pretty good road team this season with a 2-1 record. San Diego is sitting with a 3-1 record at home this season, which is very good. QB Philip Rivers has thrown an NFL-high 14 interceptions this season, just one short of his career high. The Chargers, however, have been winging the ball all over the yard this season, ranking in the Top 5 for passing yards per game. They do, however, also give up quite a few yards through the air as well. I expect both of these teams to put up points tonight as I don't trust either defense. I'm expecting Rivers to throw for a couple of scores in this game while it will be interesting to see whether the Carson Palmer experience is going to finally work out for Oakland.
Free Pick: A touchdown in the NFL is a lot of points, especially in a rivalry game. Not sure whether I can lay the points or take the points with the Raiders. However, I do think the total is something that we can use — 47.5 means each team will need to score three touchdowns and hope for one to hit for another. I like Rivers in this game tonight as Oakland gives up nearly 28 points per game this year. I'll take the over tonight as both teams should probably be able to score some points.
Oakland Raiders at San Diego Chargers betting preview
Deceiving Scoring Last Week and Thursday Night NFL home teams plus other factors NFL bettors need to know about Raiders at Chargers (Thursday, November 10, 2011) from Pregame.com - Including predictions from Marco D'Angelo and analysis from host RJ Bell.