SNF: Chargers vs Dolphins Prediction and Game Thread

Sunday Night Football, Week 14. Tonight the Los Angeles Chargers host the Miami Dolphins.

As the playoff picture starts to come into focus both these teams come into this game needing a victory. The 6-6 Los Angeles Chargers need this game badly to keep their wild card hopes alive. A loss here would put the Chargers in the position of likely needing to run the table to get into the playoffs. A win here combined with the New York Jets loss to the Buffalo Bills earlier today would pull the Chargers even with the Jets in the wild card race.

The Chargers come into this game losers of three of their last four games. This home game ends a brutal stretch of four Chargers road games in the last five games. Now the Chargers go into the home stretch with just two road games in the final six games of the season. The Chargers have not beaten a winning team all year. Tonight would be a good time to break that streak against the Dolphins. The Chargers have not had much trouble scoring this year. The problem has been stopping their opponents. With a defense ranked 30th in the NFL in scoring, stopping the high octane Dolphins offense will not be easy, especially with injured star safety Derwin James likely to miss his first game this year. The Chargers may need to win a shootout to prevail tonight.

The 8-4 Miami Dolphins come into this game off a 33 - 17 blowout loss to the San Francisco 49ers. Prior to that loss the Dolphins had won five straight games. That long winning streak may not be as impressive as it sounds, as none of the Dolphins’ victims were winning teams. In fact, the Dolphins have not won a game against a winning team since they beat the Buffalo Bills way back in September. Like the Chargers, the Dolphins have not had much trouble scoring this season. However, also like the Chargers, the Dolphins have struggled to keep their opponents from scoring. With the NFL’s #26 ranked scoring defense, the Dolphins defense has been only slightly better than the woeful Chargers defense. This sets up a potential high scoring shootout tonight between two of the league’s better offenses.

The Dolphins have won three of the last four meetings between these two teams. I expect that to change tonight. With the Dolphins making the difficult cross country trip to San Diego and the Chargers at home, I’ll take the Chargers to pull off the upset here against the Dolphins. I have submitted my pick for this game and all this week’s games using the widget from our partners at Tallysight. You can follow all my picks throughout the season, as I prove for another season how I’m not made to be a gambler.