San Diego Chargers at Indianapolis Colts

Written by Jack Jones

The San Diego Chargers travel to face the Indianapolis Colts Sunday in a key AFC match-up. If you asked most people, they would tell you that these two are clearly Super Bowl contenders in the AFC. But each finds themselves in second place in their own divisions. San Diego (5-5) trails the Kansas City Chiefs by one game in the West while Indianapolis (6-4) is behind Jacksonville due to the head-to-head tiebreaker. NFL odds for this game show us a line of Colts -3 over Chargers with a Total Set of 51.5 points.

Once again, the San Diego Chargers are hitting their stride in the second half and look to continue their dominance over the Colts Sunday night on NBC. San Diego is 4-1 in their last five meetings with the Colts, and this will be their third trip to Indy in the last five years. The last two have not ended pleasantly for the home team. The Chargers stopped the 12-0 Colts in 2005 with a 26-17 victory, and in 2008 they rallied for a 28-24 win in the playoffs after Philip Rivers was knocked out of the game. Also, San Diego eliminated Indy from the playoffs a year later with a 23-17 home victory.

Indy managed to get through the 2010 playoffs without having to face San Diego, and as a result they went all the way to the Super Bowl. Peyton Manning owns a 77.5 passer rating in five meetings with the Chargers since 2005, which is the lowest for him against any team he’s faced at least three times. Manning even threw a career-high six interceptions in a loss to the Chargers back in 2007. San Diego has held the Colts to 24 points or less in all five meetings, and head coach Norv Turner believes their 3-4 scheme defensively has a lot do do with it.

San Diego one again got off to a slow start this season at 2-5 with things looking gloomy in their division after a fast start by the Chiefs. The Chargers have found a way to rebound like they always seem to do, reeling off three straight wins since while scoring 32.7 points per game. This team has found themselves below .500 through five games in each of Turner’s first three years on the job, but they’ve found a way to make the playoffs each season. San Diego finds themselves just one game back of Kansas City thanks to the play of Rivers, who has thrown 10 touchdowns during their 3-game winning streak.

The Colts have lost two of their last three games as Manning has thrown interceptions with the game on the line in losses to both the Eagles and Patriots. Their lone win came against Cincinnati, 23-17, despite Indy putting up season-low yardage numbers offensively. It took 5 defensive turnovers for the Colts to escape with a win over the lowly Bengals. The injuries are piling up in Indy, but the one thing they have going for them is the fact that they are 4-0 at home this season and 19-1 in their last 20 games at Lucas Oil Stadium.

Philip Rivers is having an MVP-caliber season despite so many injuries to his receiving corps. Rivers is right on pace to break Dan Marino’s single-season passing yards record, throwing for 3,177 yards and 23 touchdowns to 9 interceptions. He’ll get two of his favorite targets back this week in Vincent Jackson and Antonio Gates. Jackson returns from a three-game suspension to make his season debut after leading the team with 1,167 receiving yards and 9 touchdowns last year. Gates leads the team in both categories this season with 663 receiving yards and 9 touchdowns despite missing time. Gates is questionable, but all signs point toward him playing Sunday night.

BetUS Projected Score: Colts 27 – Chargers 24

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