Will the Pats remain hot in the playoffs?
The Patriots are back in big business, and the “how” has all the other teams trembling. Just a few years after Tom Brady, they once again have a quarterback who is a difference maker and is likely to win the MVP award this season.
Even the Chargers with Justin Herbert can’t quite keep up, even though he has also had a strong season. If LA hadn’t had such immense injury problems (Alt, Harris, Hampton, Slater, Colson, Fuga, to name a few), even more would have been possible.
However, they have been struggling for weeks now and we don’t see how they can stand up to the Pats at Gillette Stadium. That might have been possible on the run, but New England has the sixth-best run defense and should not allow much here either.
That puts far too much pressure on Herbert, and the Pats will take advantage of that. So, for Patriots vs. Chargers, our prediction is a home win for the Pats, with plenty of points scored again. The last time Patriots games scored less than 40 points was 15 game days ago.
Kick-off for this playoff duel is at 2:00 a.m. on Monday morning in New England. The game concludes Sunday’s Wild Card Round games and will be broadcast live on RTL and the streaming service DAZN.
In our opinion, the Patriots are the clear favorites, which is only partially confirmed by the handicap. In addition to win bets, handicap bets with a handicap of up to -3.5 are still very playable. Combinations with a TD tip on Hunter Henry are also possible, as the tight end has scored two touchdowns in his last three games.
New England Patriots – Los Angeles Chargers Head-to-head comparison / H2H statistics
There is a lot to be said for New England in this matchup, but one thing is not in their favor: the head-to-head comparison of recent years. In the last two meetings, the Pats were clearly inferior on both occasions – in the penultimate duel, they didn’t even score a single point (0:6).
However, the Pats’ quarterback at the time was Bailey Zappe, and there was no sign of Drake Maye. Therefore, these results should only have a peripheral influence on the Pats. Their current form is likely to be much more important, with New England coming into the game on the back of three consecutive wins and the Chargers on the back of two defeats.
New England Patriots – Los Angeles Chargers Tip
Defensively, both teams are relatively similar, but offensively, the Pats are clearly superior. They score 7.2 points more than the Chargers on average, and it doesn’t take much imagination to predict that they will repeat this advantage on Sunday.
The Chargers’ struggling O-line in particular will make it extremely difficult for Herbert to get plays going through the air – where the Pats also have a surprisingly good secondary. So for Pats vs. Chargers, a bet on New England in combination with over 37.5 total points is our number one bet.
Our first alternative tip is a handicap bet on the Pats -3.5, followed by a player bet. The odds for a TD by Hunter Henry are currently up to 2.66, which we consider very high, as the tight end is one of Maye’s favorite targets.
