Thursday Night NFL - Raiders to be bowled over by Chargers

NFL Thursday night games start from this week onwards & we begin with an AFC West clash between the Oakland Raiders & the San Diego Chargers, the Raiders won both games last year thanks to some excellent special teams play but they have serious injury worries this week & could struggle to hurt the Chargers.

(Mike Tolbert can get invloved in the passing & rushing game & looks value at 15/2 to score the 1st touchdown)

Oakland have starting quarterback Jason Campbell likely to be out for the season & they saw fit to trade with Cincinatti Bengals for Carson Palmer, he's a reasonable passer but hardly great & hasn't had the time needed to learn & settle into the Raiders offense in order to be truly effective. Oakland are a potent rushing outfit, ranking 3rd in the league but with running back Darren McFadden ruled out of this one through injury they'll have to rely on Michael Bush who rushes for over a yard less per attempt although he's pretty effective in short yardage situations & picked up 8 TDs on the ground last year. They aren't great defensively either ranking 29th against the run, getting torched by the Broncos on Sunday, they're 20th against the pass & are giving up 27 points a game, if they keep defending like that along with having offensive problems they will struggle to win many games.

The Chargers started out very nicely with just one loss in their 1st 5 games & that was against New England but they've lost their last 3 with the loss against the Chiefs in overtime being particularly disappointing, they put up a spirited display against unbeaten Green Bay showing that they are a real attacking unit scoring 38 points. Philip Rivers has been uncharacteristically careless this year having thrown 14 interceptions already but he shouldn't be written off & he's still thrown 11 touchdowns for the year, he's got great targets in Antonio Gates & Vincent Jackson to throw to plus Ryan Matthews & Mike Tolbert also get involved out of the backfield. Matthews & Tolbert form a great tandem running partnership wearing down offenses with speed & power respectively, Matthews is coming off an injury so they won't want to run him head on too much in this one so when San Diego get down to the goal line we expect them to use Tolbert in those short yardage situations & he's value at 15/2 to score the 1st touchdown. After Sunday's high scoring loss to Green Bay at least the offense will be feeling pretty good & with the Raiders having so many injury problems San Diego will be wanting to win this one convincingly & can cover the 7 point spread as they strengthen their playoff claims.

Selections:
San Diego Chargers to beat Oakland Raiders with -7 points on the handicap at 20/21 with Ladbrokes
Mike Tolbert to score 1st touchdown at 15/2 with Boylesports