{"id":11496,"date":"2010-12-14T00:10:55","date_gmt":"2010-12-14T05:10:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/?p=11496"},"modified":"2010-12-14T00:10:55","modified_gmt":"2010-12-14T05:10:55","slug":"thursday-night-football-picks-chargers-vs-49ers-nfl-game-preview","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/thursday-night-football-picks-chargers-vs-49ers-nfl-game-preview-11496\/","title":{"rendered":"Thursday Night Football Picks: Chargers Vs 49ers NFL Game Preview"},"content":{"rendered":"

San Francisco 49ers at San Diego Chargers, Qualcomm Stadium, San Diego, CA
\nThursday, December 16, 2010, 8:20 pm EST, TV: NFL
\nOpening Line: Chargers -9
\nCurrent Line: Chargers -9
\nOpening Total: 44
\nCurrent Total: 44.5
\nMoney Line: Chargers -385 \/ 49ers +325<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"Chargers
Philip Rivers & the Chargers hope to continue their surge toward the playoffs when they host the 49ers<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The San Diego Chargers (7-6) and San Francisco 49ers (5-8) both earned important wins against division rivals last week to stay in contention for the playoffs.\u00a0 But only one of them will be able to carry a two-game winning streak into Week 16 while the other will face even greater odds after this crucial Thursday Night Football matchup in San Diego.<\/p>\n

The Chargers (-9) are fortunate enough to be hosting the 49ers at this point of the season and finish the regular season with road games at Cincinnati and Denver.\u00a0 Meanwhile, the 49ers visit San Diego and St. Louis before playing their regular-season finale at home against Arizona.<\/p>\n

San Diego returned to dominance in a 31-0 rout of Kansas City last Sunday thanks in part to the fact that Chiefs quarterback Matt Cassel was unable to play due to an appendectomy.\u00a0 Cassel\u2019s backup Brodie Croyle fell to 0-10 in his career starts after completing 7 of 17 passes for 40 yards and getting sacked four times for 29 yards.<\/p>\n

Offensively, the Chargers used a balanced offensive attack that saw quarterback Philip Rivers connect on two touchdown passes with wide receiver Malcom Floyd while running backs Mike Tolbert (66 rushing yards) and Ryan Mathews (65) each added touchdown runs.\u00a0 Mathews saw his first action since Week 9 and turned in his second-best performance of the year behind only a 78-yard effort against Kansas City in the season opener.\u00a0 San Diego is 2-2 without Mathews this season and has now won five of six following a 2-5 start.<\/p>\n

San Francisco has won consecutive games only once this season, alternating wins and losses in four games since then.\u00a0 The 49ers welcomed quarterback Alex Smith back and turned in their best offensive performance of the season in a 40-21 victory against Seattle last week.\u00a0 Alex Smith replaced the ineffective Troy Smith, who had replaced him during the team\u2019s trip to London.\u00a0 Alex Smith ended up completing 17 of 27 passes for 255 yards with three touchdowns \u2013 all in the first half \u2013 and no interceptions against the Seahawks.<\/p>\n

The OVER has cashed in San Francisco\u2019s last two games after two straight UNDERs.\u00a0 The 49ers are 3-6 against the spread in their last nine games compared to a 5-1 mark both straight-up and ATS in the last six for the Chargers.\u00a0\u00a0 The UNDER is 3-0-1 in San Diego\u2019s last four overall and 4-1 in the team\u2019s last five home games.<\/p>\n

Now that you have read this football betting preview featuring the Chargers & 49ers, check out the NFL odds on this and all the games to compare the best lines at multiple sportsbooks.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

San Francisco 49ers at San Diego Chargers, Qualcomm Stadium, San Diego, CA Thursday, December 16, 2010, 8:20 pm EST, TV: NFL Opening Line: Chargers -9 Current Line: Chargers -9 Opening Total: 44 Current Total: 44.5 Money Line: Chargers -385 \/ 49ers +325 The San Diego Chargers (7-6) and San Francisco 49ers (5-8) both earned important […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":194,"featured_media":4116,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1444,132],"tags":[2777,2508,1930,1922,298,299,3872],"class_list":["post-11496","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-headlines","category-nfl-handicapping","tag-chargers-49ers-preview","tag-free-nfl-pick","tag-nfl-odds","tag-nfl-picks","tag-san-diego-chargers","tag-san-francisco-49ers","tag-thursday-night-football-betting"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11496","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/194"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11496"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11496\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11497,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11496\/revisions\/11497"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4116"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11496"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11496"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11496"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}