Chargers turn Cardinals into turkeys: The great, the bad and the ugh

A big win over the Arizona Cardinals has us talking big again about the Los Angeles Chargers.

FACT-CHECK on last week’s BOLD PREDICTIONS:

The Chargers run up the score against Arizona and win by 20+ points.

RESULT: Win by 35. My bad.

My Bosa’s back and there’s gonna be trouble… Bosa goes on rampage mode.

RESULT: Two sacks and overall a towering presence.

Austin Ekeler is rediscovered.

RESULT: 103 yards from scrimmage and a tough-it-out touchdown.

Keenan Allen is ‘The Slayer’.

RESULT: Cardinals flocked to K-13 like in Hitchcock’s classic movie Birds, yet Keenan still got 72 yards and a nimble touchdown.

Ahem, I predicted all of the above last week. Drop Mic. Pay the man. I am Karnak the Underwhelming.

The GOOD: Philip Rivers for Most Valuable Pope

Philip the First set an NFL Record: 25 consecutive completions in a single game.

Rivers could have taken a sack and had a chance to go farther but he threw his 26th pass at the feet of Ekeler rather than lose three yards. That makes Rivers greater than the record: seeking the win above personal achievements. His completion percentage for the whole game? Over 96 percent.

The Chargers cut their penalties down 75 percent, from 12 to four, from last week. It was the losing Red Birds that took the most penalties . Odd how often that happens.

The Bad

The next opponent, Pittsburgh on the road.

The Ugly

All the sweet success sours if Melvin “Flash” Gordon is out for more than a few weeks.

Readers surely remember a few games back when the great mini-Ekeler was announced as the starter, due to Gordon’s hammy. The opponents smothered Ekeler. Justin Jackson is impressive, but he is not the Melvinator.

Also a big Ugh: Corey Liuget is out for the year. Like Hunter Henry. Like Jason Verrett. Like Denzel Perryman. Four starters down already, and WHAT ABOUT MELVIN? And where’s nose tackle Brandon Mebane? Dancing with the stars?

BOLD PREDICTIONS: the Pittsburgh Road Game

Ben this is Joey; Joey, this is Ben. Hug it out.

1. Joey’s gonna get up close and personal, meat grinding Roethlis-into-burger.

2. Sean ‘McCaulay’ Culkin is Home Alone: in the passing game, Thor stays in the Picture.

3. TV commentators will refer to the Chargers wide eeceivers as ‘possibly the best wide receiver corps in the league”. The Williams’ Bros. and K-13 will fight over the football like cheetahs over a glazed-eyes gazelle.

4. If wIthout Gordon, this game will be tougher than any so far this season.

Chargers win or lose in the final minutes.

HOLIDAY TREATS: Nuts and Bolts

I run a 2018 NFL.com fantasy team, MY HORSE PICKED MY PLAYERS, and just for fun, I loaded it up with Chargers, and this week 100% Chargers: Mike Badgely as kicker, the Bolts’ defense and ALL offensive positions.

They hit 102 points and come Tuesday morning, my team will be 9-3.

Even with Antonio Gates earning only 1.8 fantasy points and Tyrell Williams whiffing at 0.0 this week, I racked up 102 fantasy points from the Chargers’ punishing win against Arizona.

So, yes, “My Horse Picked My Players”, — but my horse is a War Horse: a Charger.

NFL.com game summary pages: for the uninitiated, if you look at the center top of the game summary page for each Chargers’ game results, you’ll see a button: “Download Game Book (PDF)”. Click on it and a webpage magically appears showing every official stat, all the nuts, and the BOLTS (see what I did there?) from the game. You can see Derwin James number of tackles, every running backs’ yards per carry average, and old man Rivers’ historic passing day.

The NFL.com Game Book is a magic portal to Football Nerd-vana, or Narnia, or Nevada (bet on Bosa).