Week #8 Freebie

San Diego and New Orleans in London

The Chargers have twice been pummeled when traveling to the East coast for a 1 pm game this year, both times occurring within the last 3 weeks. What will happen to them when they have to move their clocks up 5 more hours from East coast time for the game in London this week? If you believe in travel fatigue, I’m not sure an NFL team has ever faced more coming into a game than the Chargers this week. It’s not like they were just unfortunate in their prior East coast losses either, they were pretty soundly beaten.

The Saints were pretty soundly beaten when looking at the scoreboard for last week’s game at Carolina. The final score doesn’t tell the real story, though, as the Saints actually outgained the Panthers in total yards. The Saints had two turnovers, while the Panthers had known. If there was unbalanced distribution of turnovers in a game this last week, believe me, I was on the wrong side of it, lol. Last week, both the Saints and Chargers gained 5.5 yards per play, though the Saints did it versus an overall tougher Carolina defense.

Jeremey Shockey, the red neck, blue talking over-rated TE for the Saints, reaggravated the hernia injury that had kept him out of several games. He says he’s currently feeling better and did travel with the team to London, though his status is still “?”. Reggie Bush is out for 3-4 weeks, and that’s an injury with actual negative repercussions for the Saints (as Billy Miller and the somewhat gimpy Mark Campbell are both adequate replacements for Shock Jock), as he’s returned 3 punts for touchdowns and has big play capability either running or catching the ball on offense.

The Chargers’ have been dealing with recent injuries in their wide receiving and linebacker corps, and it looks like those injuries will carry over into this game.

Marques Colston did return from injury for the Saints last week, but didn’t catch any balls. His lack of production was attributed to being out of sync with the offense after his long injury absence.

Neither team is particularly adept at pressuring opposing quarterbacks, though the Chargers are 3 rankings worse at #25. They had no sacks and were not even credited with a quarterback hurry in last week’s loss at Buffalo. I don’t need to tell you what kind of strain their defense is going to be under if they can’t get pressure on Drew Brees, who is already one of the least sacked quarterbacks in football, ranking #2 in sacks allowed per passing plays (my rankings always have #1 as being the most favorable in a category, so the Saints #2 ranking in sacks allowed per passing plays means they allow the second least). The Saints still have the #1 ranked passing game in football, while the Chargers are #3. The gap is wider than the actual rankings though, and I project the Saints to get about one more yard per passing play than the Chargers.

The Chargers’ run game production has dropped markedly this year in no small part due to LT’s troubled toe. Take away a 31 yard reverse by Vincent Jackson last week and you’re left with the running backs only gaining 41 yards via the rush. The Saints run game is where it typically is, near the bottom of the rankings. The Chargers will have the advantage in the run game, but it won’t be enough to counter their disadvantage in the passing game.

The Saints released their punter after last weeks’ loss, and signed Ben Graham to fill his shoes. The Saints’ kicking and punting has been dreadful this year, with both kicker Gramatica and punter Weatherford no longer active in their duties.

This game looks to be settled by the passing match ups, with Drew Brees more capable of success with his current targets than Phillip Rivers is with his.

Final Score Projection: Chargers 23 – Saints 26

Recommend Play: Saints +3

I am showing some value on the Over, but given the forecast of 20+ mph winds with slight precipitation and fairly high humidity, I’d pass on the total, in spite of the air show this game may turn into. If the wind forecast decreases, the Over becomes playable. If the precipitation forecast increases, look out, as the Giants and Dolphins played a very low-scoring game on a muddy natural grass field in London last year.