San Diego Chargers
vs.
Indianapolis Colts
Week 3
Free NFL Pick
9/25/16
San Diego travels east to play Indianapolis in Week 3 of the NFL season. The Chargers are 1-1 and in a three-way tie for second place in the AFC West. The Colts have struggled out of the GAte at 0-2 and are tied for third place in the AFC South. have an over/under of 52 listed for this Game and the Colts as a 2.5-point favorite.
The Chargers are coming off a dominating performance as they beat Jacksonville 38-14 last week. Philip Rivers was instrumental in this win as he went an efficient 17-of-24 for 220 yards, Four touchdowns and no interceptions. Rivers is has had an extremely strong start to the season, completing 70 percent of his passes for 463 yards, five touchdowns and no interceptions.
Rivers now gets to go up against one of the NFL’s worst defenses through two weeks. Indianapolis has surrendered an average of 424 yards per Game. Through the air the Colts give up an average of 299 yards per Game.
This should be good news for Travis Benjamin, Rivers’ top target through the first two weeks. Benjamin exploded last week as he caught six passes for 115 yards and two touchdowns. A year ago he had his best NFL season with the Cleveland Browns, catching 68 passes for 966 yards. Benjamin is off to a good start again as he looks to duplicate or improve upon last year’s numbers.
Melvin Gordon continued his strong but light workload from Week 1 in the win. He ran the ball 24 times for 102 yards, scoring his third touchdown of the season. Gordon is showing great potential compared to his rookie season a year ago.
For Indianapolis their success, or lack thereof, will be placed on the arm of Andrew LUck. He’s gotten off to a pretty go start this season, throwing for 582 yards, five touchdowns and only one interception through two Games. LUck should have plenty of opportunities as San Diego is allowing over 320 passing yards per Game to their opponents.
LUck hasn’t had any trouble finding targets on the field. He has seven different receivers who have caught five or more passes this year. T.Y. Hilton, Donte MoNCrief, Jack Doyle, Josh Ferguson and Frank Gore each have seven or more receptions on the season.
Speaking of Gore, the running Game has had difficulty developing. Gore has been limited to 103 yards on 27 carries in two Games. That’s an average of 3.8 yards per carry. Not awful, but it’s certainly not a lot of help for LUck.
Prediction: Expect to see a lot of points on the board as neither defense projects well to slowing down the opposing offense. With that, Our pick is to go with the over on the 52. We’ll also call for the Chargers to pull the upset as the Cots drop to 0-3. OVER 52 and Chargers +2.5