NFL Picks – Week 16 [Friday Night Football SD @ TEN]

Merry Christmas from TheCoach!

San Diego (11-3) @ Tennessee (7-7)
Line: Tennessee -3.0
LINE DROPPED TO TEN -2.5

San Diego Chargers have won 9 straight.
Phillip Rivers is 17-0 in the month of December.
Tennessee Titans have won 7 of their last 8 (loss was to the 14-0 Colts).

Hmm.. this is a tough situation/game to bet on. TheCoach is warning you in advance right now to watch out for anything to happen. At 11-3, with last weeks win over the Bengals, and Denver’s loss to Oakland, no one can catch the Chargers for the 2nd seed (include first-round playoff BYE). Will the Chargers finish off the season strong and play it out? or do they rest their starters in order to avoid serious injury? The Titans meanwhile are playing for their playoff lives with the 8-6 Broncos and 8-6 Ravens ahead of them in the wild-card slots with 5 other teams at 7-7 (Jags, Dolphins, Jets, Steelers and Texans). Tennessee knows they need this game more than anything where as the Chargers don’t need it at all. Hence the -3.0 spread for the .500 team over the the team that has won 9 straight (against teams like the Eagles, Giants, Bengals, Cowboys and Broncos). Can’t tell me this line doesn’t seem a little shady.

With 85% of bets on the Chargers, TheCoach expects the line to drop to Titans -2.5 or -1.5

Last week, I expected the Chargers would beat the Bengals in a game that mattered so much. If they won, they secured the second seed… if they lost, they would fall to 10-4 and the Bengals would be 10-4 (with a win over San Diego). The Chargers put everything into last weeks game and have nothing to play for this week. With that being said, they will still put up point as they are so hot right now, honestly, it’d be crazy to think otherwise. The Bengals couldn’t stop Rivers, as he went 24-of-38 for 308 yards, three touchdowns and two interceptions so TheCoach can’t see the Titans aerial attack doing much better. The ground game has been producing as of late which has really helped the 9 game winning streak. Cortland Finnegan has his hands full as do the rest of the Titans secondary but the defence knows this is a huge game and the crowd will be awfully noisy and fired up Friday night as the Titans are hosting the Christmas night game that will be watched by millions around the world.

As for the Titans, they have been running the ball on everyone, no matter who they play. Since mid-October they’ve put up 125+ per game on 4.1 yards per carry. Unfortunately, I don’t think it is possible for Chris Johnson to break the rushing record this season but 2000 yards is certainly in reach. The decision Bud Adams and Jeff Fisher made to start run-capable quarterback Vince Young has allowed Johnson excel even more. San Diego hasn’t looked great against the rush lately and their pass defence has looked poor as well. Each QB to face them in the last three weeks has put up relatively good numbers (Brady Quinn, Tony Romo, Carson Palmer) so TheCoach expects not only the run game to be working but Vince Young to involve his WR’s early as well.

Clearly the Chargers are the better team here, but when handicapping games you can’t always look at who the better team is, sometimes you have to pay very close attention to the psychological edges teams have going into games. The Chargers just came off possible their biggest win of the season over a Bengals squad fighting for a win in the remembrance of Chris Henry, while the Titans are now in the biggest game of their season in a much win. The intensity the Titans bring will simply be to much for a Chargers team who will be flatter than usual.

PREDICTION:
Tennessee 24 San Diego 21

Also, Be Sure To Check Out:

NFL Picks – Week 16 [Early Games]

and;

NFL Picks – Week 16 [Late Games and Monday Nighter]