{"id":4973,"date":"2019-01-04T23:09:17","date_gmt":"2019-01-04T23:09:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/?p=4973"},"modified":"2019-01-05T03:15:25","modified_gmt":"2019-01-05T03:15:25","slug":"los-angeles-chargers-take-on-baltimore-ravens-in-afc-wild-card-playoff-action","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/nfl\/los-angeles-chargers-take-on-baltimore-ravens-in-afc-wild-card-playoff-action\/","title":{"rendered":"Los Angeles Chargers Take On Baltimore Ravens In AFC Wild Card Playoff Action"},"content":{"rendered":"

Yesterday we talked about the \u2018lag time\u2019 between a change in performance for a NFL team and the corresponding change in their \u2018public perception\u2019<\/a>. This is another good example here. Just two years ago they were known as the San Diego Chargers and they were awful finishing the 2016 season 5-11. They relocated up the coast a bit and showed some improvement in their new digs in Los Angeles going 9-7 in 2017. 2018 saw dramatic improvement for the Los Angeles Chargers with a 12-4 record but guess what? Nobody really noticed due to the Los Angeles Rams torrid start to the season and resulting 13-3 record. <\/p>\n

If you ask the average \u2018man on the street\u2019 to name the best NFL football team in Los Angeles there\u2019s a good chance he\u2019ll name the wrong one. The Rams have the marginally better record but the public has yet to figure out what the \u2018sharps\u2019 have known for most of the season\u2014the best team in Los Angeles is the one with the lightning bolts on their helmets. One reason that the Chargers may still be \u2018below the radar\u2019 is that they don\u2019t dominate in one phase of the game. They\u2019re a rare NFL team that is extremely competent in all of them. Try these numbers on for size: The Chargers finished the 2018 regular season ranked #11 in total offense, #10 in passing offense, #15 in rushing offense and in a sixth place tie for best scoring offense at 26.8 PPG. On defense, the Chargers ranked #9 in total defense, #9 in passing defense, #9 in rushing defense and # 8 in scoring defense giving up 20.6 PPG. They could have done better in turnover differential\u2014at +1 they\u2019re in a multiway tie for #15 in the league but at least they\u2019re in the black. That can\u2019t be said for Baltimore with a -3 turnover differential putting them at #22 in the NFL. <\/p>\n

The Baltimore Ravens were going nowhere at the start of this season. 9 games in they were 4-5 and faced with the prospect of replacing injured starting quarterback Joe Flacco. Enter rookie quarterback Lamar Jackson. Jackson will never be mistaken for Drew Brees but he\u2019s a heady player and a dangerous rushing threat. Since Jackson took over Baltimore has gone 6-1 and turned a lost season into another playoff appearance. Jackson did what was asked of him and did it well but there\u2019s a decent chance that Baltimore would have gone on a winning run in the last seven games anyway. They did have one nice victory over the Chargers but their other five victories came against five sub .500 teams– Cincinnati, Oakland, Atlanta, Tampa Bay and Cleveland.<\/p>\n

Jackson will get the start here with Joe Flacco relegated to backup status. From a philosophical standpoint it might be the right move\u2014Jackson hasn\u2019t done anything to \u2018lose the job\u2019. It\u2019s a tough thing to process intellectually, however, since the Ravens will go with a quarterback getting his first playoff start over a proven postseason commodity. Flacco shook the reputation of being unable to \u2018win the big games\u2019 years ago and in his last 10 playoff games has thrown 24 touchdowns to just 4 interceptions with a 104.1 passer rating. He\u2019s thrown 2+ touchdown passes in eight straight playoff games which happens to be the longest such run in pro football history. <\/p>\n

The conventional wisdom is that Flacco will be gone after this season anyway so from a developmental standpoint it makes since to go with Jackson. This might be proven to be the right move a few years down the road but it won\u2019t help the Ravens win this game against a very dangerous Los Angeles Chargers team that might be the most balanced squad in the NFL on both sides of the ball. Making the Chargers all the more dangerous is their proven ability to win on the road. At one point, there was a trendy handicapping angle to play against West Coast teams traveling East\u2014particularly when they were playing early start times games. If you tried that \u2018strategy\u2019 against the Chargers you\u2019d be working at 7-11 by this point. Los Angeles went 7-1 on the road this season winning games in every time zone. They even won a game on Greenwich Mean Time<\/a> when they beat the Tennessee Titans at Wembley Stadium in London. Their ability to play on the road isn\u2019t a fluke\u2014they\u2019ve gone 21-8-1 ATS in their last 30 away games. They\u2019re the better team and they have no trouble winning on the road. The three points is a gift.<\/p>\n

BET LOS ANGELES CHARGERS +3 OVER BALTIMORE RAVENS <\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Yesterday we talked about the \u2018lag time\u2019 between a change in performance for a NFL team and the corresponding change…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":4974,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[129],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4973","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nfl"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4973","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4973"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4973\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4975,"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4973\/revisions\/4975"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4974"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4973"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4973"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4973"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}