This Sunday, the San Diego Chargers will travel to the windy city of Chicago to take on the Bears. The weather men and women have predicted a high of 44 degrees on Sunday, and it'll probably be colder than that with a local start time of 3pm (meaning it will be dark by time the game ends). The Chargers typically play poorly in cold weather.
Oh, you want more reasons to be certain that the deck is stacked against San Diego this weekend? Okay. How about this? The Chargers are 1-3 on the road this season, only narrowly edging out the Broncos in Denver after John Fox put Tim Tebow in too late. They've lost to the Patriots, Chiefs and Jets away from San Diego.
The Chargers defense, which is not very good, allows 23.8 points in home games. Nor surprisingly, they allow almost 3 more points per game when playing on the road. As bad as Philip Rivers has been this season, he's been worse on the road than he has been at home. His QB rating drops almost 5 points when you compare home/away splits, and his interception rate is much higher (4.9% of throws going for INT against 3.8%).
The Bears aren't going to do the Chargers any favors, either. They're 4-1 at home, with their only loss coming against the undefeated Green Bay Packers. Their QB, the lighting-rod of media controversy, Jay Cutler has a QB rating nearly 9 points higher when he plays at home versus his road numbers. The Chicago defense allows 18.2 points per game at home, against 24 points allowed on the road.
Long story short? The road Chargers are usually the worst Chargers team that we see. Without Kris Dielman, Shaun Phillips, Malcom Floyd and possibly Takeo Spikes, this could be a recipe for disaster for San Diego. That would be less worrisome if they weren't playing an on-fire Bears team that plays much better at Soldier Field than elsewhere. Add in the cold weather and it'll be a damn miracle if the Chargers return home with a W.