San Diego, Ca – The NFL scheduled an extra home game for the Oakland Raiders in San Diego. Wait Qualcomm is still home stadium for now of San Diego Chargers. By know most folks have heard that the Chargers have started step one in a possible move back to Los Angeles. Was today a glimpse into the future of how it would be if they shared a home field with each other in Carson or Inglewood. As for now we will have to sit and wait, but Chargers fans would only have to deal with this once a year.
The Chargers didn’t have an answer for the Raiders today who destroyed them 37-29. After the Raiders took their foot off the gas, Phillip Rivers managed to put up 23 fourth quarter points to make fantasy football fans happy. Rivers threw 58 pass in this game of catch up for 336 yards and 3 touchdowns. They had to try to rely on his arm today with running back Melvin Gordon slated as possible for today, due to a sore ankle. The running game was slowed to a crawl, the committee of three failed to reach 100 yard barrier.
Both teams will take away some knowledge today from the game. The Raiders flight home will be fun and they will say to themselves we need to play mistake free football every week. The Chargers will take this hard loss and move onto next week. Wide receiver Keenan Allen had a good perspective on the game, “We’ve got to learn from it first on all. It’s still a learning process.”
Amari Cooper was a great target for Derek Carr, who found him for 6 catches and 133 yards. The big play was Cooper 52 yards catch and run leaving Chargers falling by the waist side to end second quarter with 30-3 lead. Chargers fans had to wonder why they took defensive back Jason Verrett off of Cooper who held him in check during first part of game before switching up and letting him shine.
Derek Carr had a solid game competing 77% of his 31 attempts with 3 touchdowns. The ground game managed 130 yards for the Raiders which was a great balance. Raiders safety Charles Woodson was pleased with his team overall performance, “It was working. It started early with the defense getting the turnover, with Malcolm Smith getting the pick.”
The AFC West picture is shaping up to be a race for second place because the Denver Broncos are 6-0 (4-0) with a 3 game lead on second place Oakland. Next Sunday Oakland will face the New York Jets and look to continue its mistake free football. Meanwhile the Chargers will go east for a match up against Baltimore Ravens and look to find that third win of the season.
