San Diego Chargers (4-7 SU, 2-9 ATS) vs. Jacksonville Jaguars (3-8 SU, 4-6-1 ATS), 8:30 p.m. EST, Week 13 NFL, Monday, December 5, 2011, Everbank Field, Jacksonville, Fla., TV: ESPN
by Badger, NFL Handicapper, Predictem.com
Point Spread: SD -3/Sea. +3
Over/Under Total: 43.5
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So how do you make a meaningless game on Monday Night Football more appealing to a television audience and the four-letter network paying billions to put it on the air?
If you guessed make one of the teams fire their head coach and announce they are going to sell the team to divert the on-the-field problems with some off-the-field news to focus on for three and a half hours Monday Night … you my friend are a winner.
Alright, so the NFL probably didn’t “make” Jacksonville owner Wayne Weaver fire head coach Jack Del Rio and announce his intention to sell the team, but that’s what we’re all going to get when the San Diego Chargers travel east to Everbank Field to take on the Jacksonville Jaguars in primetime this Monday.
Both the Chargers and the Jaguars will certainly benefit from the off-the-field distractions, since both teams are waist-deep in season’s they’d like to forget already.
Once considered one of the top teams in the AFC, the Chargers have free-fallen into a devastating six-game losing streak that has essentially cost them their season. Sure, they are still alive mathematically in the weak AFC West, but with a string of tough games left (Buffalo, Baltimore, @ Detroit, @ Oakland) their fate was pretty much sealed when they were Tebowed by the Denver Broncos last weekend, 16-13, in overtime.
Kicker Nick Novak missed two late-game field goals, the second one from 53-yards with a chance to win it in overtime, which wound up costing the Chargers last week. Denver took possession after the missed kick and broke Willis McGahee for a big gain and Matt Prater drilled the 37-yarder to give the Broncos the win and keep them one game behind Oakland in the AFC West race, with the Chargers dropping three-games back.
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On the other hand, Jacksonville’s season was pretty much sealed when they once again shocked conventional wisdom and cut their starting quarterback days before the season opener. They did it when they converted from Byron Leftwich to David Garrard, and they did it once again this year with Garrard and at-the-time Luke McCown.
The end-result has been a 3-8 Jaguars team that is last in the NFL in passing offense, now playing rookie first-rounder Blaine Gabbert at QB in a Del Rio’s last ditch effort to try and save his job. For Del Rio, who was already coaching with a win-or-else ultimatum before the season started in an AFC South race that was wide open with the Peyton Manning-less Colts tumbling, the QB-switcharoo cost him his job this time around because the Jags never really mounted a threat with the McCown-Gabbert combo.
Last week playing against the injury-riddled Houston Texans the Jags didn’t mount much of a threat either, losing 20-13 even though the Texans were also playing a rookie at QB (Tyler Yates) by the time the punt-fest (19 punts, blah) had finally ended for their second-straight loss.
With Del Rio gone defensive coordinator Mel Tucker will try and lead the underdog Jaguars at home on national television on Monday Night Football, the same venue that produced their biggest win of the season thus far (12-7 win over Balt.), against a Chargers team just trying and save their pride and respect by snapping their slide in primetime.
Oddsmakers continue to list the struggling Jaguars as underdogs, listing the visiting Chargers as 3-point favorites at Everbank Field. The Jags have gotten used to the role of the underdog this season, since they’ve only been the dog in every game but the opener (-1 vs. Tenn.) and a few weeks ago at winless Indy (-3).
The over/under total opened at 40 at has been dropping since, all the way down to 39 or 38.5 depending on which offshore sportsbook(s) you wager at these days.
The total is dropping because bettors obviously don’t have any faith in the Chargers offense anymore, especially this week in a tough matchup against the Jaguars sturdy defense. I only mentioned the Chargers offense because nobody’s had faith in Jacksonville’s offense since the opener.
San Diego finally found a running game with Ryan Mathews last week (137 yards, 6.2 ypc), which is an encouraging sign going into the Monday Nighter, but the Jags defense is robust (292 ypg allowed – 4th) and very hard to score on (18 ppg – 5th) despite playing an uneven amount of snaps due to their piss-poor offense.
The Chargers passing game (276 ypg – 5th) is strong enough to do damage against the Jags, but with Philip Rivers channeling his inner-Brett Favre this season he’s leading the league in interceptions (17) and shooting the Bolts air-attack in the foot too much.
Jacksonville made the switch to Gabbert who has done a good job of not throwing picks (6), but when he does throw he’s not very accurate yet (48 comp. %, 62.2 QB rating) and is slow in his progressions which explains a majority of the 28 sacks he’s taken in his nine NFL starts.
The two teams tangled last season in San Diego, and the Chargers kept the Jags-Chargers head-to-head series a home field advantage game winning 38-13. In the four-game history between these two dating back to 2003, the home team has always won (4-0 SU) and has always covered the spread too (4-0 ATS). In the two games in Jacksonville, the Jags won 24-17 in 2007 (as 3-point favorites) and 27-21 in 2003 (3-point faves again).
The over is 3-0-1 in the head-to-head series over the years, going 1-0-1 in the two games at home in Northern Florida. However, the under is more of a “current times” trend bet, since the under is 7-3 in San Diego’s last 10 on MNF, and the under is 6-0 for Jacksonville on MNF.
A few other betting trends worth noting are the Chargers struggles on MNF (1-4 ATS) and on the road as the favorite (2-8-1 ATS in last 11 attempts). The Jags are only 3-7 ATS on MNF, but they are 1-0 ATS this year.
Badger’s Pick to Cover the Point Spread: One of these days you know the Chargers are going to explode on offense, but not this week because the Jags defense is too good for that to happen. Even though the total is dropping and it appears to be a heavy public play, I still think this game will struggle to go over for another ugly Monday Nighter. I’m taking the under of 39.
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