Five Reasons The Chiefs Will Win In San Diego

2.) For once, the Chiefs are playing a team as beat-up as they are

I don’t need to remind any Chiefs fans how this team has been ravaged by injuries to start out. The team was clearly still reeling from its early casualties in the first two games, but have since found ways to gameplan around the players available and the many replacements are growing into their roles. So far, all of that tinkering has had to happen on the fly, but expect the Chiefs to come out looking like a complete team with two weeks to prepare (more on this in #3).

For the Chargers, on the other hand, the injuries are just now starting to pile up. Their injury report reads like the chronicle of a massacre – their first three RB’s out, sack-leader OLB Dwight Freeney and top two CB’s Brandon Flowers and Jason Verrett questionable. If that’s not enough they have two starters on their offensive line banged up – including their backup center who has been shaky even when healthy.

Oct 5, 2014; Santa Clara, CA, USA; Kansas City Chiefs running back Jamaal Charles (25) carries the ball against the San Francisco 49ers during the first quarter at Levi

Sick in bed on Saturday, I watched through their 31-28 win over the Raiders last week and San Diego’s weakness – particularly with its mounting injuries – showed through in a major way.

The Raiders, who have had no pass rush to speak of this year, continually collapsed the pocket, and rookie QB Derek Carr looked like an all-pro converting eight of 13 3rd downs and throwing 4 TD’s all over the Chargers’ overrated and banged-up secondary. The most amazing thing about the game is that the Raiders really should have won it. They had five drops (that I counted, probably more) in key moments, Seabass actually missed a field goal and they committed some signature Raiders foot-shooting penalties. Even so, the game was basically theirs to win until Carr, while already in range to kick the game-tying field goal, forced at ball into double coverage and ended the game with an interception.

If you’re looking for something to keep you busy this morning I highly recommend you to watch the game (if you can stand the bizarre situation of sort of rooting for the Raiders). If San Diego struggles this mightily against a winless bottom feeder, you can rest assured the Chiefs are going to do some pushing around.