Los Angeles at Detroit

The San Diego Chargers started the season 4-1 and it looked like they finally figured out how to keep themselves out of a big hole. All that changed when they lost six straight to drop to 4-7. Left for dead, the Chargers have breathed life into their palyoff hopes with three straight wins. What's going on? How good are the Chargers, really? They are not as good as the team that should have made the playoffs a year ago. That team was solid on both sides of the ball (ranked #1 in both offense and defense), but their errors and special teams killed them. This year the defense is not nearly as good and Phillip Rivers is having the worst season of his career. Rivers was mentioned in the same breath as Brady, Manning and Brees before this season started. But, he has been a turnover machine as he has thrown 17 INTs on the season, and has stopped numerous drives. The New England Patriots take a lot of flak for their lack of defense, but believe it or not the Chargers have allowed the same QB rating against their defense as New England has theirs this season. This miraculous three game winning stretch has come with only one win over a quality team, Baltimore, and the "quality" of that team right now is debatable. The other two wins came against 4-10 Jacksonville and 5-9 Buffalo. Detroit has to be feeling good after snatching victory from defeat last week at Oakland with a last second TD drive to win by a single point. With 33 TD passes Matthew Stafford can sure take advantage of this pourous Chargers defense, especially at home. San Diego has had trouble putting up the numbers on both sides of the ball in consecutive games, and are 2-7-1 ATS in their last 10 after gaining over 350 yards the previous game. The Lions have not lost ATS in their last eight as a favorite of -3 or fewer. Play on Detroit in this one.