Oakland Raiders: Game breakdown and prediction for Week 10 against Los Angeles Chargers

The Oakland Raiders are on the map now and nothing is more detrimental to teams who play with a chip on their shoulder than expectations. Let’s talk Week 10.

It’s a quick turnaround week for the Oakland Raiders as they host their long-time rival Los Angeles Chargers at home this Thursday. Will the Raiders move over .500, or will the Bolts continue on with momentum from last week’s big win over Green Bay?

Here’s how I see it. Now, I feel like everybody is starting to come around on this Raiders team and realize they aren’t as bad as everybody thought they’d be coming into the season.

They sit at 4-4 and have beaten good teams like the Chicago Bears, Detroit Lions, and Indianapolis Colts and even had Deshaun Watson and the Houston Texans on the ropes just a couple of weeks ago.

They’re also one of the better rushing teams in football, ranking sixth in rushing yards per game, and their offensive line has let up the second-least sacks in the league with nine.

Derek Carr leads the league in completion percentage (71.2%) among qualifying quarterbacks with at least 120 attempts as well.

This Raiders team is by no means a disaster like I thought they’d be before the season. They’ve cleaned up the outside noise, dropped a few problematic guys from the roster, and have consistently been a tough out on a weekly basis.

More from Golden Gate Sports

• Raiders: Rookie stock report following Week 3 performance
• 49ers sign new long snapper amidst a flurry of roster moves
• Oakland Athletics win Game 2 of Wild Card round with late-inning drama
• 49ers: George Kittle and Deebo Samuel cleared to return to practice
• 49ers expected to place DE Dee Ford on injured reserve

I’d argue they’re actually the better team in this game.

But here’s the thing with the Chargers, they’ve beat up on the Raiders a lot in recent history and from what we saw of their line play last week, they can definitely match up with the Raiders’ lines and win the battle in the trenches.

The Bolts absolutely pushed around and bullied a very good ground-and-pound Packers team last week and held the great Aaron Rodgers to just 161 yards passing on the day.

The Bolts halted the run game, put pressure on Rodgers, and outmuscled the Packers with a beat-up offensive line of their own and defense that, up to that point, hadn’t been all that impressive and to this day have only registered 21 team sacks on the year.

The Chargers can play and win the trench game with this Raiders team. They’ve won four-in-a-row against Oakland dating back two years and have also been victorious (stretching back a little further) in 23 of their last 31 meetings with the Raiders.

Now the Raiders are on everybody’s radar and seem to be a popular upset pick this week over the Chargers. I’m going with the Bolts to stick to the historical script and win once again over their AFC West rivals.

35-30 the Bolts take it and move to 5-5 on the season. Virtually no pass rush from the Raiders, so Philip Rivers will have all day to throw and win the shootout.