{"id":20367,"date":"2011-12-18T12:41:00","date_gmt":"2011-12-18T17:41:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/?p=20367"},"modified":"2011-12-18T12:41:00","modified_gmt":"2011-12-18T17:41:00","slug":"sunday-night-football-betting-ravens-look-to-dim-san-diegos-playoff-hopes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/sunday-night-football-betting-ravens-look-to-dim-san-diegos-playoff-hopes-20367\/","title":{"rendered":"Sunday Night Football Betting: Ravens look to dim San Diego’s playoff hopes"},"content":{"rendered":"

Baltimore Ravens at San Diego Chargers
\nSunday, 12\/18\/11, 8:20 PM EST, TV:\u00a0 NBC
\nOpening Point Spread:\u00a0 Baltimore -1.5
\nCurrent Betting Line:\u00a0 Baltimore -2.5
\nOpening Total:\u00a0 45
\nCurrent Total:\u00a0 44
\nOdds Courtesy of Bookmaker<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

\"Ravens
Ryan Mathews and the Chargers need a win on Sunday night to stay in the AFC playoff race.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The San Diego Chargers will be fighting for their playoff lives while the Baltimore Ravens are playing for postseason positioning as the teams square off on Sunday Night Football.\u00a0 The Chargers (6-7) started the day two games behind Denver for the lead in the AFC West, but that could change heading into the evening if the Broncos (8-5) lose at home to the New England Patriots.<\/p>\n

San Diego finishes the regular season with road games against the Detroit Lions (8-5) and Oakland Raiders (7-6), and Denver visits the Buffalo Bills (5-8) next week before hosting the Kansas City Chiefs (5-8) in the team\u2019s home finale.\u00a0 The Ravens (-2.5, O\/U 44) are tied with Pittsburgh atop the AFC North but own the tiebreaker by virtue of winning both head-to-head meetings.\u00a0 They are also tied with the Patriots, Steelers and Houston Texans for the top record in the conference.<\/p>\n

Baltimore is riding a four-game winning streak, with the last loss coming in the team\u2019s last visit to the West Coast in Week 10.\u00a0 The Ravens fell 22-17 to the Seattle Seahawks (6-7) in that game and trailed 22-7 early in the third quarter before scoring the final 10 points.\u00a0 They failed to get running back Ray Rice going offensively, handing the ball to him just five times for 27 yards, although he also had eight receptions for 54 yards.<\/p>\n

Rice has carried the ball 20 times or more in each game during Baltimore\u2019s winning streak, averaging nearly 118 yards on the ground during that stretch.\u00a0 He has helped take some pressure off quarterback Joe Flacco, who has regressed a bit this year after throwing 25 touchdowns and 10 interceptions a year ago.\u00a0 Flacco has 15 touchdown passes and nine picks this season, and he is completing six percent less of his throws.<\/p>\n

The Ravens would be wise not to turn this game into a shootout because the Chargers have played much better in their last two games.\u00a0 San Diego QB Philip Rivers has thrown six touchdowns in helping his team win consecutive games following a six-game losing streak that saw him toss 10 picks.<\/p>\n

Rivers has gotten some help as well from second-year RB Ryan Mathews, who is averaging 121 yards per game in the past three.\u00a0 Mathews had rushed for more than 98 yards only once in the previous nine games he played this year.<\/p>\n

The Chargers have lost four of the last five meetings with Baltimore both straight-up and against the spread, scoring 13 points or less three times.\u00a0 But in splitting the past two meetings, San Diego has averaged 29 points with the total going OVER both times.<\/p>\n

Don\u2019t miss out on a winning season and let the NFL handicappers<\/a> at Maddux Sports line your pockets with cash.\u00a0 Long term packages are available now!<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Baltimore Ravens at San Diego Chargers Sunday, 12\/18\/11, 8:20 PM EST, TV:\u00a0 NBC Opening Point Spread:\u00a0 Baltimore -1.5 Current Betting Line:\u00a0 Baltimore -2.5 Opening Total:\u00a0 45 Current Total:\u00a0 44 Odds Courtesy of Bookmaker The San Diego Chargers will be fighting for their playoff lives while the Baltimore Ravens are playing for postseason positioning as the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":194,"featured_media":17244,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1444,132],"tags":[608,396,1772,1930,1922,1035,2757,1069,2827,298,5479,6141],"class_list":["post-20367","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-headlines","category-nfl-handicapping","tag-baltimore-ravens","tag-joe-flacco","tag-nfl-betting","tag-nfl-odds","tag-nfl-picks","tag-philip-rivers","tag-pro-football","tag-ray-rice","tag-ryan-mathews","tag-san-diego-chargers","tag-sunday-night-football","tag-week-15"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20367","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=20367"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20367\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20369,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20367\/revisions\/20369"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17244"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20367"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20367"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20367"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}