Chargers begin the longest road trip of the season with a stop in Buffalo this Sunday. From Buffalo the Chargers head straight to London where they will face the New Orleans Saints. San Diego arguably coming off their best game of the season defeating the New England Patriots 30-10 in the Sunday night prime time game, and we’ll see if that momentum carries over here. Buffalo off a rough loss at Arizona two weeks ago as their QB Edwards was knocked out early in a 41-17 embarrassment against the Cardinals. Buffalo QB Edwards suffered a concussion in that game but he’s had the bye week to get healthy and has been cleared to play. So who’s got the edge here today? Let’s take a look a closer look at both squads and we’ll start with the visiting Chargers.
San Diego now stands at 3-3 on the season and sit a game back of Denver in the AFC West standings. Of course San Diego fans and referee Ed Hochuli will tell you that the Chargers should be the 4-2 team and Denver 3-3, but that’s a whole different discussion. Chargers have the twelfth ranked offense in the league averaging 318 yards per game, but unlike years past, LaDainian Tomlinson hasn’t been the main reason. LT only averaging 3.7 yards per carry this season and he’s only scored 4 touchdowns this season. Without LT producing the Chargers have turned to the air to get it done. Rivers has nearly 1500 yards passing this season with 14 touchdowns and only 4 picks. Vincent Jackson and Chris Chambers a terrific tandem at WR, Antonio Gates one of the best tight ends in the game, and the special teams with Darren Sproles have been excellent. Defensively it’s another story for San Diego. The Chargers rank twenty-eighth in the league in defense giving up 366 yards per game and gets even worse on the road where they’ve given up a whopping 400 yards per contest. Charger secondary is allowing 65.3% pass completions this season and they’ve got to get better is they expect to make a Super Bowl run.
Buffalo Bills 4-1 on the season are coming off their first loss of the season at Arizona two weeks ago, and they’ll look to get back on track at home where they’re 2-0 this season. Bills offense has been more productive this year with Edwards at QB scoring 25.2 points per contest. Edwards is completing 66.4% of his passes, and he has a nice young RB in the back field in Marshawn Lynch who has 4 scores this season. Defensively the Bills hold the edge here today. Buffalo ranks ninth in the league in overall defense and eighth against the pass, so it’ll be interesting to see that Charger passing attack against the Bills pass defense. Buffalo special teams should get a boast with the return of Roscoe Parrish to the line up, and like San Diego’s return man Sproles, he’s a threat to score every time he gets the ball. Bills suddenly find themselves in the role of favorite in the AFC East division and a favorable schedule could just put them in the playoffs for the first time since 1999.
Checking the trends and angles for this one we find that San Diego is a terrific 36-17 ATS on artificial turf since 1992, and 16-4 ATS versus AFC opponents the last 2 seasons. Bills are a solid 11-3 ATS in tight games where the line is 3 or less in any direction, and a money making 12-6 ATS at home the last 18. San Diego is 4-2 straight up in the series but just 3-3 ATS and Buffalo has actually covered 3 of the last 4. It’s certainly a good situational spot for Buffalo as the Bills are coming off a loss and a bye while the Chargers are off a satisfying revenge win over New England and they’re headed straight to London to face New Orleans next week. With that said I’m going to take the over in this one Sunday. Bills should have success against that Charger secondary and San Diego’s balanced offensive attack should get some good play action going against Buffalo. Buffalo 4-1 over this season including 2-0 over at home and the Chargers are 5-1 over on turf the last 2+ seasons. I don’t think 45 is enough points and I’ll side with the over here.