Jacob Lintner’s Opinion:

No matter what you say about your favorite teams, you just can’t beat the rush of going to a hometown football game. Sadly, this game between the St. Louis Rams and San Diego Chargers will be held in So’ Cal, but it will be exciting nonetheless. This game features two teams with completely different game plans: the Rams being very defensive-minded, while the Chargers relying extremely heavily on the right arm of Philip Rivers. These differences make this game quite intriguing for both the casual St. Louis fan and the die-hard NFL aficionados.

First up on this list of differences is the offensive style of play. The Chargers live and die by the pass, with a 244.8-85.6 passing-rushing yards per game ratio, one of the highest such ratios in the league. This shows the faith and pressure that faces Rivers each and every game, while their rushing attack is merely there to throw off the defense every once in a while. The Rams, on the other hand, are averaging 212.1 passing yards and 100.8 rushing yards per game. This shows the Rams’ dedication to the run game. Clearly, as all good Rams’ fans know, the rushing number would be much higher if they could just score a few more points and win a little more often. This difference may not mean much except for the simple fact that the Chargers’ passing has been much more effective than the Rams’ rushing. The Chargers are averaging 11.6 yards per completion while throwing for 21 touchdowns; on the other hand, the Rams have just 4.3 yards per carry and nine rushing touchdowns. This the the Chargers an undoubtable advantage in this game.

In addition to this offensive edge, the Chargers are winning the battle on defense. They are allowing just 331.1 yards per game, while the Rams are giving up an astonishing 362.4 yards per game. Now, this number isn’t surprising for many reasons. The Rams secondary is still extremely young and cannot be trusted. They have played a lot of tough teams. I can go on, but the shocking thing is that the Rams big, bad, veteran defensive line is allowing 114.6 rushing yards per game, putting them well into the lower half of the league in this category. This number is due to a few factors: namely, the loss of their defensive captain, Chris Long following Week 1. This put the rushing defense in the hands of players like Robert Quinn and Michael Brockers, while young’uns like William Hayes and Aaron Donald were there to shore up the middle. Either way, these big men should be able to stop the run better than they are.

In the end, the Chargers will win this game in an impressive fashion. Philip Rivers will win the game for his team, while Austin Davis and the anemic (uh-NEE-mic adj.- lacking power, vigor, vitality, or colorfulness; listless; weak [definition from dictionary.reference.com]) Rams offense will struggle to keep up with the Chargers. This will give the Chargers defense an easy day, as the Rams will become extremely one-dimensional in favor of the pass. Good luck, Rams fans; this game will likely knock your team out of playoff contention.

Alex Connell’s opinion

This weeks matchup is the St. Louis Rams versus the San Diego Chargers. This week the winner of this game will be the St. Louis Rams. The leader of the Rams Austin Davis the quarterback who is taking over for Sam Bradford  who was injured early in this season. Austin has had a great season so far and last week was his eighth start in eight seasons in the NFL. So far this season he has 2001 passing yards and is averaging eight yards per attempt which is very impressive as a new quarterback in the NFL. Last week they defeated the Denver Broncos in a big upset and they are looking to make the playoffs which raises the intensity of the game and what this game is worth to them.the St. Louis run game, lead by Tre Mason has been pretty solid this year as well which has helped them defeat teams like the Seattle Seahawks.

The strongest asset the Rams have is their stone wall defense as like it was key to the victory against the Denver Broncos and holding them to only seven points which is quite a feat. So far this season the rams defense has a total of 614 tackles which means they are doing a good job of stopping the offense and putting people on the ground. Their blitzing has been very strong as well this season, lead by Aaron Donald who has four sacks this season, the Rams have 19 sacks this season so they’re getting back to the quarterback and hitting him often which is always a good thing.The Rams defense also has been very good at picking off quarterbacks. So far this season they have a total of six interceptions and turnovers have been crucial to the success of the Rams this season. I expect them to get into the head of Chargers quarterback Philip Rivers and force him to cause some turnovers which will win this game for the St.Louis Rams.

This weeks match up will be a great game but I think the rams will trample the chargers on their way to the playoffs. You can expect to see a large amount of turnovers for the Rams defense and capitalization on those turnovers by the St. Louis offense.