The lines speak for itself for this game. The San Diego Chargers (2-1) are 14.5 point favorites against the winless Jacksonville Jaguars (0-3). This should be a comfortable victory for the Chargers. Right? What's the worst Jacksonville can do?
San Diego just beat the defending Super Bowl champs in Qualcomm Stadium and traveled to a hostile environment in Buffalo to take a comfortable 12-point victory. Jacksonville has been horrid ever since the first half against Philadelphia week one, and still the rest of the league has not forgotten about it. The Jaguars are last in points allowed, passing and running yards allowed, this is going to be a cake walk for the Chargers. But is this a perfect setting for a trap game?
The meeting between these two teams last year between the time that has set in now has had drastic things happen for both teams. The Chargers surprisingly made it into the Playoffs in a controversial play and made it to the Divisional Round. The Jaguars won 4 of their last 8 down the stretch to end the 2013-2014 year, and drafted the future quarterback of the future in Blake Bortles. It also seemed that Philip Rivers has finally found his old form after missing the Playoffs for 3 consecutive years with many people thinking he was done, but Chargers head coach Mike McCoy rejuvenated his career and brought a spark in San Diego to make fans hope for glory once again.
The San Diego Chargers are coming into this game in a good spot. The Jaguars are making plenty of mental errors on defense to have guys like Antonio Gates to try to make big plays against the Jaguars secondary. The passing game looks to torch a secondary that has been sketchy for the first three weeks of the season.
What the Chargers over the week want to focus on is creating turnovers. Their defense has been stout over the first three weeks only allowing 226.3 passing yards per game (13th in the NFL), but they want to get those turnovers to give Phillip Rivers an easier task to drive down the field. Injuries have hurt the Chargers over the week, losing Inside Linebacker Manti Te'o and both Running Backs Ryan Mathews and Danny Woodhead for this upcoming game. Their running game has already been struggling to start the year (ranking 26th) and now look for running back Donald Brown to carry the load against the Jaguars.
This past week has been a roller coaster for the Jaguars organization and their fans. They were down 30-0 in the first half with underwhelming quarterback Chad Henne only throwing a little over 30 yards and had 2 first downs in the First Half. Head coach Gus Bradley finally pulled the trigger and now his rookie quarterback is in for the long run.
Blake Bortles had a decent showing for his first appearance in an NFL game with 224 yards with 2 touchdowns and two interceptions. Now, all eyes are on the rookie from Central Florida. He looks to pull the Jaguars in what would be a miraculous performance to upset a Chargers team that looks to have all the momentum in the world today. The Jaguars need to fix their defense, however, they are ranked last in nearly all the major defensive categories.
The Jaguars have injuries to deal with as well, with tight ends Marcedes Lewis and Mickey Shuler being injured and it looks to be the guy they signed earlier in the week to start at tight end in Nic Jacobs. The Jaguars will also be without rookie wide receiver Marqise Lee.
Each team has also made moves to their representative depth charts to help improve both sides of the ball. The Chargers are also moving up Dan Legursky to the starting center position, the third center in four games for the Chargers. The Jaguars have also made moves to their defense with shifts in outside linebacker J.T. Thomas and costless safety Josh Evans to help the defense.
Whoever comes out of Sunday with the victory will have an interesting storyline to follow. "Chargers Now Chasing Peyton and the Broncos," "Jaguars Blown Out in Bortles' First Start," "Chargers Receive Scare from Jaguars, Still Win," "Bortles Kombat Claims Its First Victim," and many more to show in the coming days, no matter what happens Sunday.