This couldn’t be easier. Empty your bank account and put it all on the Buffalo Bills this Sunday. It’s a lock, the Los Angeles Chargers should save the travel and hotel expenses and just call from the West Coast and surrender the game.
I mean, come on, look at what these two teams have done the first two weeks of the 2026 National Football League season. The Bills opened on the road to challenge one of the considered best defenses in the league and hung 36 points on them in a win. They got their second victory last week at home against a respected Detroit Lions team, and the score was not even indicative of how they dominated the play on the field while tallying 41 points with the Josh Allen led offensive juggernaut.
Meanwhile, on the opposite coast, the Los Angeles Chargers have got the final score down, 26-14. The problem for Jim Harbaugh’s team is that the Chargers have been victims of that score in their first two games against a pair of highly suspect teams, the Arizona Cardinals and Las Vegas Raiders. When the Cardinals weren’t playing the Chargers, they got slammed by the Seattle Seahawks on their home field, 31-7.
Lose 31-7 at home and beat the Chargers on the road 26-14.
Oh yeah, this is a mismatch of epic proportions.
How many points do the Chargers get on the line for their game at the new Highmark Stadium? Twenty, thirty or more? This is like a college game, where Ohio State can be favored by more than 50 points.
Seven.
What?
The Bills are only favored by seven points in a game they are going to win by 30? What is this, the books offering an early Christmas gift? Get everything out of your bank and borrow from your relatives, you can pay them back with interest on Monday.
It’s easy.
Now back to my office and a word from our killjoy.
I don’t like “easy.” It is too often a trap set by the sharpest guys in our game, the bookmakers. They are skilled at setting lines that nudge the wagering public to the wrong side of a proposition. If the vigorish on a game is 10% you would think that would be a book’s profit margin.
It’s not.
It routinely runs between 18 and 22 percent profit for the house.
Why?
Because most gamblers look for easy and get tripped up on their way to the payout window. Gamblers also have other tendencies; they have an inclination to wager more when they are ahead in an attempt to make a killing until they are no longer in the black. They also have a horrible habit of wagering more when they are behind to try and get even, until they are in over their heads.
At Qoxhi, twenty-five years ago we introduced the Account Manager online to try and combat gambling tendencies with bright money management. Truly shifting wagering on football from a gamble to an investment.
For gamblers, it’s not as fun as wagering on their own picks with money they can’t afford riding on a left-footed kicker in the snow. But, minus that adrenaline boost, we figure season-long profits are a good trade. And, those profits are not made on “easy” picks, but games where one squad is challenged to the max and their opponents think tossing their helmets on the field will be enough to win the game.
It seldom is, and even less often covers the point spread.
Couple that with a line that is not bloated, at least not yet, and you can be sure the books have set a trap with cheese for the gamblers.
A look at the Chargers motivation for this one brings up a very telling situation. Consider this, the Chargers opened the season with two home games against teams they thought they were going to beat easily, the Cardinals and Raiders. Every team is aware of where they open their season and if they are in for a difficult challenge or expect to roll.
The opening games spike preparation motivationally when they have a tough challenge to open a campaign, and just as surely can blunt it when they have what looks like a cakewalk. Now, the Chargers go from what they thought would be easy games to a monumental challenge against the explosive Bills.
The shift in motivation from flat to focused couldn’t be more pronounced than it is this coming Sunday for Harbaugh’s men.
Will everything be in line to actually make this a money rated play on Sunday is unknown this early in the week for this intriguing matchup. But for sure, we won’t take the easy route.
Qoxhi Picks: Los Angeles Chargers (+7) over Buffalo Bills