Seattle Seahawks vs San Diego Chargers
The San Diego Chargers look to pick up their first win of the 2014 NFL season in their home opener at Qualcomm Stadium after losing to the Arizona Cardinals on Monday Night Football against the defending Super Bowl champion Seattle Seahawks on Sunday afternoon who defeated the Green Bay Packers in their first game.
Date: Sunday, Sept. 14
Start time: 4:05 p.m. ET
Location: San Diego, California
Stadium: Qualcomm Stadium
TV info: FOX
Live stream: NFL Sunday Ticket
Radio: Seahawks broadcast on 710 ESPN Seattle and KIRO Radio 97.3 FM. Chargers broadcast on 105.3FM and Spanish broadcast on XHFG 107.3 FM.
Ticket info: For Seahawks ticket info click here. For Chargers ticket info click here.
Keys to Victory
The Chargers blew an 11-point lead in the third quarter in the opening week loss to the Cardinals and had a costly bad snap in the fourth quarter that pushed the team out of field goal range and later lost the game. To have a chance against the Seahawks those types of errors and mistakes can’t happen against a defense that will make you pay and an offense that doesn’t make many mistakes.
San Diego needs Malcolm Floyd to build on his encouraging performance in the opener when he played in his first game since he missed the last 14 games last year with a neck injury. He caught four passes for 50 yards and a touchdown. The Chargers need Floyd and tight end Antonio Gates who had a team-high six receptions for 81 yards to find a way to beat the Seahawks secondary.
Richard Sherman wasn’t even thrown at in the Packers win when they made Aaron Rodgers look like a far cry from the Super Bowl winning and MVP quarterback that he is what he was held to 189 yards and 5.7 yards per attempt and an interception.
Phillip Rivers has to at least challenge Sherman and try to use the entire field and work the ball down the field.
Seattle needs to continue doing what they’ve done and feed the ball to Marshawn Lynch who scored two touchdowns and ran for 110 in the opener and put Russell Wilson in favorable third down situations where he can look for Percy Harvin in the passing game.
San Diego has to win the turnover and field position battle on Sunday to defeat the Super Bowl champions, so special teams play will be an important element to pull off the upset.
Betting Odds
Point spread: SEA -5.5
Moneyline: -254
Over/Under: 44.5
Prediction
Seattle is operating at such a high level that it will take a perfect game to knock them off — even on the road — so Rivers can’t throw any interceptions and Ryan Matthews has to have more than the 40 yards on 12 carries he had against the Cardinals.
If the offense struggles against the best defense in the league, then the Chargers defense has to pressure Wilson and stop Lynch and I don’t believe the Chargers have the personnel on defense to do so.
San Diego will be aided by the home crowd for a half and keep the score reasonably close, but the punishing running of Lynch wears down the Chargers defense and the Seahawks pull away in the second half.
Final Score: Seahawks: 28, Chargers: 17