NFL Picks Week 16: Bills vs. Chargers

The Buffalo Bills come to Inglewood on Saturday for an AFC showdown with the Los Angeles Chargers at SoFi Stadium. The Bills are coming off a very nice 31-10 win at home over the Dallas Cowboys, their second straight win as they try to hit a fever pitch at season’s end to book a postseason berth. Things are far less rosy for the Chargers, who saw their season freefall to a rock-bottom point last Thursday in a 63-21 loss to the Raiders, resulting in their head coach and GM being sent packing. Can the Chargers bounce back or are the Bills looking to do what other recent opponents of the Chargers have been doing, which is clean their clocks? Let’s break it down!

How Can You Depend on the Chargers?

It was hard enough with Justin Herbert in there, but it’s now QB Easton Slick starting behind center and this season having gotten so bad that they cleaned house before it’s over. With interim head coach Giff Smith, you have more of a defensive-oriented coach. He’s been with the team since 2016. It’s hard to not notice that some teams see a surge when a coach is sent packing, as it certainly looked like the Chargers had given up on Staley at least a few weeks ago. Will that give way to maybe some heightened energy from the Bolts in the immediate wake of these shifts?

There is always that chance. Everyone is so down on the Chargers right now that it wouldn’t take much for them to elevate their form beyond what is being forecasted. But with the rampant personnel issues, the setting is not ideal for that to take hold. The line is battered, a QB with little play under his belt is starting, Mike Williams is gone, and Keenan Allen missed his last game and might be iffy for this. Joey Bosa is out, making it harder for Smith’s defensive handiwork to take hold, though he can’t possibly do any worse than his predecessor. It’s just that when heading into a matchup like this, the half-baked notion that having a new face in the leadership role will give way to better results is a pretty thin premise. And with the Bolts right now, that’s about the only source of hope available.

Good Spot for Buffalo?

It sure looks like it. It hasn’t been easy this season. They’ve had issues on both sides of the ball that prevented them from reaching their normal stature, which would be having a playoff spot sewed up by now. It’s still a team with a very high ceiling, and we’ve been seeing more of that lately. To butcher the Cowboys so convincingly, which followed them going into Arrowhead to beat the Chiefs, shows that this could be the closest to the peak version of the Bills that we’ve seen all season. For the Chargers, that’s all kinds of bad news.

Maybe coach Smith can offer a different look, but despite still having the kind of talent on defense that would be the envy of most teams, their results are nearing slapstick levels, allowing a Raiders team that couldn’t score points to save their lives for weeks to get out to a 42-0 lead t halftime. When Aidan O’Connell is torching you, it’s not a good sign when Josh Allen and a Buffalo squad pushing for a playoff spot with an ax to grind comes into town. And when your home game isn’t really much of a home game at all, with the ideal conditions helping the opposing offense’s chances more, it’s just another dagger the Chargers need to overcome this week.

Not a Slam Dunk

When it looks too easy, it usually is. Here come the Bills, doing well on the heels of their most impressive win of the season, looking strong and needing to make up for lost ground. On the other sideline is the most pitiful Bolts team we’ve seen in years, fresh off some embarrassing defeats with their coach and GM just fired. It sets up for a “damn the torpedoes” approach where an enthusiastic Buffalo backer gives passing thought to the spread and just gets behind the Bills almost blindly. That could easily work, and this is a spot where maybe overthinking it can only get you into trouble.

I just think it’s fair to point out that other than their week three win over the Commanders, the Bills haven’t come all that close to putting up double-digit wins on the road. And while you might want to count it in their favor that they have a high state of urgency trying to fight their way into the postseason, there’s a flip side to that, too. In other words, the reason they’re in this spot is because things don’t always go according to plan for this bunch. The offense falls flat. The defense hits a bad note. And it hasn’t been an aberration when it happens, occurring frequently enough to where maybe laying a bunch of points on the road isn’t the best role for this Bills team.

Lay the Number

The lack of the Bills being foolproof and getting some new leadership is still a pretty negative and flimsy premise upon which to build a position on the Chargers this week. Maybe if all this had happened earlier in the season, the Chargers could bounce back. But heading into week 16, there may more or less be a collective urge to get to the finish line of this season. And a team with any of that swimming around in their heads right now would all wrong for the Bills. I’m taking Buffalo in this one.

Loot’s Prediction to Cover the Point Spread: I’m betting on the Buffalo Bills minus 11.5 points.