More international games! While we’ll be up to eight total games played outside of the U.S. in 2025, next year will again have the five: Three in London, another again in Germany, and a fifth in Sao Paulo, Brazil.

Market

Obviously, a massive move from last week’s look ahead line of Chargers -3.5 after Justin Herbert was announced out. We saw this reopen around Vegas -2.5 and has since taken a little additional money pushing it out to -3.

Likewise, the early total of 42.5 reopened at 34.5 after the QB change and actually saw some action to take it even lower on Monday, down to 33. Some resistance there and since has it up at 34.5 again.

Injuries

welp.

The big one for the Chargers is Easton Stick starting in place of Justin Herbert, who will be out for the season with his broken finger.

WR Joshua Palmer is returning… just in time to see Keenan Allen be ruled out for tonight’s game. CB Deane Leonard is also out for LA. Michael Davis will probably start on the outside in his place.

DT Otito Ogbonnia, LB Amen Ogbongbemiga, and TE Donald Parham Jr. and all listed as questionable.

The Raiders teased the possibility of making a switch at QB, but in the end, opted to stick with Aidan O’Connell for now. He’ll have his hands full with both the starting Center and Left Tackle out. Andrew James and Kolton Miller will be replaced by Dylan Parham and Thayer Munford, respectively. Jordan Meredith will step into the left guard spot vacated by Parham.

It could get worse before kickoff. WR Davante Adams is listed as questionable with an illness and RB Josh Jacobs has missed practice all week with his quad injury. We’ll know more about their statuses closer to game time. Often we get early announcements, but at a minimum, inactives are due 90 minutes before kick.

Matchup

Buddy, I’m exhausted just thinking about this one. Short week, interim head coach vs possible lame duck head coach, missing QBs, injured WRs, and two teams with virtually no shot at the playoffs.

Easton Stick did throw a pretty nice deep ball last week against the Broncos, finding Quentin Johnson for a 57-yard bomb to set up the Chargers’ only score of the day. Even with that, he finished 25 out of 30 QBs in EPA/play last week and will go into this one, on the road, on a short week, without his top weapon. I don’t see it as some recipe for success, especially for a team that’s struggled mightily to get the run game going.

One of the five QBs who finished below Stick last week was Aidan O’Connell. Now down two important pieces on his offensive line and possibly without the best two players on offense, I guess it’s probably shaping up to be a long day for both young signal callers.

While we might be surprised, I get the feeling this is the opposite of the “last team with the ball wins”. We could end up with more of a “first team to flinch loses” situation where whoever gives up the first horrible turnover is put into a spot that’ll be tough to dig out of without becoming more aggressive and possibly just making things worse.

Who could succeed:

• The Raiders have struggled against the run, so maybe a second straight week of Austin Ekeler looking like a viable running back? He had 100 total scrimmage yards last week, mostly from a negative game state.

• Center Andre James has graded out as one of the best interior offensive linemen this year, with a 96% pass-rush win rate. His absence could be a boon to the LAC pass rush. Down a tackle as well, it’ll be tough to choose where to deploy extra help; Khalil Mack had SIX sacks last time these two teams met.

I have these teams as the 29th and 32nd-best offense over the past four weeks. The defenses grade out in the middle of the pack, but back to the offensive rankings: for the most part these teams were healthy over that stretch. Even with middling defenses to go against, the attrition caused by the beat-up nature of these squads could have us in a good old-fashioned mid-off.

Prediction: Raiders 16 - Chargers 13

Betting

It’s just gonna be the first touchdown darts for me here. I tried to dig into the props for Ekeler and the LAC receivers a bit and with Jacobs and Adams' status up in the air, I’m going to just enjoy this, meet up with Drew at halftime to bet the 2H, and take some long shots in the first TD market.

Small bets on:

Jakobi Meyers +1300

Joshua Palmer +1500

Hunter Renfrow +2200

Gerald Everett +2300

Jaylen Guyton +3000

good luck, have fun.

One Down, Thirty-One to Go

I simmed out the season, determined a draft order that I wanted to use for this, and started picking apart the rosters.

I went over what I thought should be the top three needs to be addressed for the Cardinals this season. Hoping to knock out another five of these this weekend as I hide from my in-laws. Chime in if you have a hot take on what the Arizona front office should be doing.

Excited to have a mock draft put together after getting through these

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