NFL - Oakland (4-4) at San Diego (4-4)

Sky Sports, Friday November 11th, 1.20am

A crucial AFC West game that’ll put the winner on top sees both teams short of important players through injury; San Diego are missing Luis Castillo, Kris Dielman, Malcom Floyd and Shaun Phillips, whereas Oakland have Chris Johnson, DeMarcus Van Dyke out, and Chimdi Chekwa and Michael Huff don’t look like they’ll go – most crucially of all for the Silver and Black, Darren McFadden is still sidelined.

Philip Rivers has confounded all season; I’ve discussed him at length so won’t do it again, but it’s probably best to keep it simple for him; it’s impossible to ignore his league leading 14 INTs and as the Raiders have struggled to stop the run, getting gashed for 298 yards by Denver on the ground last week, and they rank 29^th against the run overall – perhaps he should just hand it off.

Matthews and Tolbert must get heavily involved, and I particularly like Matthews catching out of the backfield – a problem for the Raiders’ D all season. Denver’s success on the ground was via read option plays (fairly obviously because Tebow was under centre) and the Bolts don’t have that luxury here. Instead, Tolbert’s power up the middle will change it up and although I like that less, because of the Seymour/Kelly DT combo, with both backs capable of catching the ball (and Seymour questionable) they should put up some yards.

Kamerion Wimbley and Jarvis Moss are solid enough pass rushers, but if Rivers is going to pass – and the temptation to let the 4^th best passing attack ypg against the 20^th ranked pass defense may be too much – then he has options; the continued recovery of Antonio Gates is good news, and the loss of Huff and the Raiders’ problems at LB should give him room to operate.  Vincent Jackson may be running into form, and his matchup on Stanford Routt will be fascinating. Routt has emerged as Oakland’s top corner and getting the best of Jackson will decide whether he’s for real.

San Diego must start converting in the redzone though; they have made 31 trips into the final 20 and come away with just 15 TDs – that’s far too low.

I’m not buying Carson Palmer, and I don’t like the 19^th ranked pass offense against the 4^th ranked pass defense. That said, Palmer isn’t a bust, and he has plenty of speed out wide against a secondary that doesn’t have much speed to cover deep routes. The Chargers don’t have a pass rush to speak of, but Palmer has thrown picks, and he can’t afford to turn over the ball in this game, which may be something of a shootout.

Oakland’s big hope is Michael Bush, smashing it up between the tackles against the Bolts’ 18^th ranked rush D which is not fully fit. If Bush gets going and takes the pressure off Palmer, look for some deep shots.

The other crucial aspect of the Oakland game is penalties; last week they gave away 130 yards on 15 flags and they have an eye-watering 730/84 stat on the season – in a territorial game, where rhythm is critical, those sorts of numbers would hobble any team, let alone the Raiders.

If Norv Turner finally calls a decent game, Rivers doesn’t turn it over too much, the Bolts’ run game gets going and the Chargers finally decide to finish off a game, instead of throwing it away late on, they can cover here.

Pick: Chargers -7.0 @ 1.91; -110; 10/11

Pick: 1^st TD Antonio Gates @ 9.0; 800; 8/1

Pick: Anytime TD Jacoby Ford @ 2.75; 175; 7/4