their season-opening loss to the Arizona Cardinals<\/a>. A loss to the Raiders would drop the Chargers to 0-2 with games against NFL elites in the coming weeks. After hosting the Raiders, the Chargers hit the road to play the Buffalo Bills and then the Super Bowl champion Seattle Seahawks. They return home to play the AFC West champion Denver Broncos in Week 5 before facing the Chiefs in Week 6 in Kansas City. At that point, the Chargers\u2019 bye week couldn\u2019t come soon enough.<\/p>\nWho\u2019s better: Last week, the Chargers looked like the better team on paper until the Cardinals outplayed and outmaneuvered them in every way possible. The same might happen this week against the Raiders, too. The Chargers have better players at almost every position, including quarterback in the form of Justin Herbert. But there\u2019s no guarantee Raiders quarterback Kirk Cousins won\u2019t slice and dice them the way he did in throwing for three touchdowns in Las Vegas\u2019 victory last week over the Miami Dolphins, topping 300 TD passes for his NFL career.<\/p>\n
Matchup to watch: Can the Chargers block well enough against Maxx Crosby and the Raiders to ensure Herbert has time to throw and Omarion Hampton has room to run? Herbert was sacked three times in Week 1, but he seemed flustered at times, which has been a concerning development when he\u2019s under pressure in recent seasons. Hampton had several good runs in Week 1, but ultimately, as the Chargers fell behind, they turned to the pass and away from the run.<\/p>\n
Chargers win if: Offensive coordinator Mike McDaniel has preached conviction over perfection since his hiring in January. In light of the Chargers\u2019 sloppy fourth-quarter showing against the Cardinals, maybe he should turn around that phrase. The Chargers could use a little more perfection when facing the Raiders or any other hungry team looking to feast on the Chargers\u2019 mistakes. Herbert threw one interception and Hampton fumbled once against Arizona. The Chargers were penalized seven times for 64 yards, including false starts on back-to-back snaps in the fourth quarter. A repeat performance would be like handing over the game to the Raiders on a silver platter. Cleaning up their act must be the Chargers\u2019 No. 1 priority.<\/p>\n
Fantasy sleeper: Coach Jim Harbaugh decided against giving Cameron Dicker a chance at a chip-shot field goal in the closing moments of the first half against Arizona, and Dicker wasn\u2019t called upon to try a field goal at all in Week 1. Strange, right? He is, after all, the most accurate field-goal kicker in NFL history with a 93.5% success rate (minimum of 100 attempts). Look for the Chargers to get Dicker on the field more often if their drives stall in Week 2.<\/p>\n
Prediction: Again, it\u2019s difficult to pick against the Chargers, especially with the oddsmakers making them touchdown favorites over the Raiders. And again, the Chargers appear to have the better, deeper and more experienced team. Realistically, there\u2019s nowhere for them to go but up after laying an egg in their Week 1 loss to the Cardinals. Chargers 30, Raiders 24.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"CHARGERS (0-1) vs. RAIDERS (1-0) When: 1:05 p.m. Sunday Where: SoFi Stadium TV\/Radio: Ch. 2; 640 AM\/103.9\/89.3 FM…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":469260,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[1333,752,74,76,75,127],"class_list":["post-469259","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-diego","tag-los-angeles-chargers","tag-nfl","tag-san-diego","tag-san-diego-headlines","tag-san-diego-news","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/469259","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=469259"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/469259\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/469260"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=469259"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=469259"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=469259"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}