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Game: San Diego at New England (Sunday 9/16 8:15 PM Eastern)
Pick: San Diego +3.5
Can you say REVENGE? The Chargers are a hungry team that still thinks they belonged in the SuperBowl last year. But the Pats had something to say about that, erasing a 21-13 fourth quarter Chargers lead in last year's playoffs to send the Chargers packing. After New England upset San Diego, ending their 14-2 season, Patroits players danced on the logo at midfield after the game. The normally stoic and controlled LaDanian Tomlinson was incensed and refused to shake hands with Pats players after the game. He called the Pats "disrespectful" and said that "it showed no class at all and maybe that comes from their coach." Ouch. This will be a fired up Chargers team, putting forth it's best effort in this one. And this team's best effort is something you don't want to face. The one thing the Pats won't have here, given the early scheduled date, is their ice cold New England weather as their 12th man. It will be great football weather with game-time temperatures in the high 50s to low 60s. The Pats have this mystique of being a very dominant team at home. That is because they have dominated at home in the playoffs. The assumption by many however is that they are always a great play at home. It is actually quite the contrary! They are just 6-10 ATS during the regular season at home over the last two years! San Diego is the more talented team overall and they have a key motivational edge at work here. They no longer have Schottenheimer at the helm, who was known for somehow turning wins into losses. Instead they have Norv Turner who, despite a weak overall head coaching record, is 15-3 ATS as a road dog of 3.5 to 7 points. We think the motivational edge (San Diego up and New England possibly down after the embarrassing cheating revelations this week) plus 3.5 points makes the Chargers a great play. While our comptuter matchup of this game has the Pats winning a close one, we think the Chargers have a shot at winning the game outright. At a minimum, we like them to keep it within a field goal.
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