Here is who national experts are predicting will win the Panthers at Chargers game
Last week, it was hard to find an NFL expert who liked the Carolina Panthers to beat the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
Ditto this week with Carolina traveling cross-country to play the Los Angeles Chargers without star running back Christian McCaffrey.
According to Tallysight, which congregates picks from national experts, 95 percent of them pick L.A. Another site, NFL Pick Watch, has 93 percent going with the Chargers.
But count Sports Illustrated’s Schuyler Callihan as an outlier. He thinks the Panthers get a win out west.
“For two weeks in a row, we’ve seen the Panthers battle all the way down to the latter half of the fourth quarter,” Callihan writes. “There is a lot of fight with this team and even without McCaffrey, I think this is where Carolina picks up their first win of the season, albeit a close one.”
Here are some other predictions:
▪ All six Sports Illustrated “Monday Morning Quarterbacks” and all eight CBS experts are going with the Chargers.
▪ NFL.com’s Gregg Rosenthal, who went 12-4 last week with his predictions, thinks the Chargers win a close one 27-22.
“(Rams rookie QB) Justin Herbert couldn’t ask for a better matchup,” Rosenthal writes. “Carolina’s defense has a grand total of 1 QB hit with no sacks through two weeks. This is a lightweight group playing a lot of dime defense, almost inviting the opposition to run because the Panthers know they don’t have a pass rush until Kawann Short returns from a foot injury.”
▪ Eight ESPN experts leaned to the Chargers.
▪ Both of the Pro Football Talk writers — Michael Davis Smith and Mike Florio — picked the Chargers. Davis Smith wrote “This Panthers team is playing hard for first-year coach Matt Rhule, but right now the roster just isn’t good enough. The Chargers will cruise to an easy win.”
▪ Four of the six experts at Bleacher Report took the Chargers.
▪ The Sporting News is predicting Chargers, 26, Panthers 20, writing, “the Panthers’ chances in this game depend on Christian McCaffrey’s availability, and he’ll be out.”
▪ Finally, USA Today is going with Chargers 26, Panthers 15. “The Panthers will struggle mightily on offense with their biggest star in a walking boot for at least the next month,” Joe Williams writes.
This story was originally published September 27, 2020 at 6:30 AM with the headline "Here is who national experts are predicting will win the Panthers at Chargers game."
