#462 ASA NFL PLAY ON 8* Washington -1 over LA Chargers, Sunday at 1:00 PM ET - This lined opened with LA favored by 1. Bad line in our opinion. No way they should have been favored in this game. It has since flipped to Washington -1 and our power rating have the Football Team -3 so still some decent value on the home team. We question the Chargers continuity coming into this game as they did not play many of their key starters in the pre-season including QB Herbert, WR Allen, etc… On top of that their top RB Ekeler is most likely out with a hamstring injury. Not only did many key starters sit the pre-season, the Chargers are also learning new systems on both sides of the ball under first year HC Staley and not playing in live game action is not an ideal situation for that process. Herbert played outstanding as a rookie but we’ll see how he does on Sunday vs one of the top defenses in the NFL with a hostile crowd in place. Last year he had the luxury of playing in empty stadiums but that changes this season and Washington is a tough spot to open. The Football Team have one of the best defensive lines in the NFL and will put plenty of pressure on Herbert. They finished in the top 5 in sack percentage and sacks per game and we expect them to be better this season. Washington’s defense is great and their offense will be better this year with Fitzpatrick at QB. He had an excellent season last year with Miami (68.5% completion rate, 2100 yards, 13 TD’s) and we’d argue the Fins were a better team in Fitzpatrick’s 9 starts than when Tagovailoa took over. Fitz “magic” ended the year with a QBR of 70.9 and Tagovailoa came in at 44.8. The offense struggled at times last year but should be much better in 2021 to go along with their top defense. LA looked improved with 7 wins last year but 4 of those came all by 3 points vs Cincinnati, Denver, Las Vegas, and Atlanta (who ended last year with a combined record of 21-42). The other 3 came vs the 1-15 Jaguars, the 2-14 Jets, and KC in the final game of the year when the Chiefs sat all of their starters. This Charger team is a bit overvalued entering the season with the Herbert hype. Let’s see how he does on the road vs a top tier defense. Washington gets the home win to open the season.