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“Chargers-Can They Will Win-Will They Be Embarrassed?”

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This will be fun to watch on Sunday.

It’s the Chargers-vs-the Raiders.

You know, all that history of hate. Al Davis, Art Shell, the Holy Roller, Big plays, big hits. Dan Fouts with blood on his uniform. Lots of penalties. Winning streaks, ill-will, and all. Fights and drunks in the parking lots at the Q. Check off all that from games past.

Some of the edge may have gone off this rivalry in that we no longer have a team to love in San Diego, thank you Spanos family.

But the electricity that made this rivalry go here, has been replaced by the energy triggered by the hate towards Chargers ownership.

O there will be storylines heading into Sunday’s game.

Jon Gruden bringing a (1-3) team into the Stub Hub Center.

The angst over the Raiders upcoming move to Las Vegas, leaving loyal fans in Oakland for the second time in their lives

The enigma that is Mark Davis, who inherited the team, after his father ran it into the ground.

The matches on the field will be dazzling. Derek Carr has become a mad bomber in the tradition of Plunkett-Lamonica and Stabler. He’s completing 75% of his passes, and has a cadre of guys to throw to down the field.

Amari Cooper, Jordy Nelson, and tight end Jared Cook make big plays each weekend.

The Beast is back, the beliggerant style of running back Marshawn Lynch i He is having a vintage like season after a year away from the game, and a year full of injuries.

Of course the Raiders drag controversy with them, wherever they go. The trade of pass rush specialist Khalil Mack, has not gone down well in Oakland. You can blame Gruden, or maybe GM-Reggie McKenzie or even the cash-poor Davis himself.

Oakland hasn’t played defense in years, and still aren’t, the aftermath of bad drafts and some injury issues.

We know the dynamics of Philip Rivers, the explosiveness of Melvin Gordon and Austin Ekeler, the big yards after catch we have seen from Keenan Allen, Mike Williams and Tyrell Williams.

But here’s the bigger storyline to watch on Sunday, in what is an important AFC-West game in the division.

Is the color of the day on Sunday-Silver & Black?

Will the Stub Hub Center be overrun by Raiders fans from here-there-everywhere? They’ve done it before, in recent years in San Diego, why not this weekend up there?

The NFL did not want Davis and his Raiders in the LA market. It has been a bad business operation for years, not to mention the historical hate dating back to all the Al Davis lawsuits over the years.

NFL owners must privately regret giving Dean Spanos and his two sons, the keys to be the second team in LA. They must not have paid attention to how poor a business-side operation AG Spanos ran the final years in San Diego. Sellouts went away, gross revenue was down, so was attendance.

And yet, even after the near unanimous vote to kill the Spanos-Davis alliance to build a new stadium in Carson, they still allowed the Chargers to move into the market, as a tenant in the Rams news stadium to be opened in two years..

And now they are facing the reality, the LA market dislikes the Chargers ownership, and the brokers, allowed to buy large amounts of tickets, then selling them to the other teams fans. Look at how much ‘Red’, 49ers colors, in the crowd last weekend.

An example of what Chargers home games have become in just a year plus up there. The Bolts are effectively playing 16-road games a season.

So we have an important game, that likely will be a quarterbacks shootout coming up on Sunday. and we will have the Charges playing a road game in their own stadium again.

And because of the excitement over the Gruden hire, what he has done with Carr, and how important this Sunday game is, it will be wild..

Sure the Chargers can win, but in all likelihood, the Raiders will win the heart of the fans in Los Angeles.

Get ready for another terribly embarrassing day for the ownership of the Chargers, and for the NFL for the decisions they made.

The Raiders will likely make a claim to win the “Fight for LA”.

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