Antonio Gates is now officially a member of the San Diego Chargers again. The Bolts made the roster move on Monday afternoon, waiving safety Adrian Phillips to make room for the future Hall of Fame tight end.
San Diego does not plan on limiting the snaps for Gates in their Monday night meeting with the Steelers, so he seems like a decent guy to target in our weekly list of three guys to watch.
Antonio Gates, TE
Usually I try to stay away from the obvious contributors but Gates could have a monster night against Pittsburgh. The Steelers will not have their most talented linebacker, Ryan Shazier, due to injury and their defense is vulnerable to good tight end-quarterback tandems. In Week 1 Rob Gronkowski and Tom Brady shredded the Steelers with 94 yards and three touchdowns. Pittsburgh was hurt by Vernon Davis and Colin Kaepernick in Week 2 and has not really played a decent tight end since. Now that they get Gates and Philip Rivers, the most prolific TE-QB combo in NFL history, the Steelers defense could be in for a long night.
Dontrelle Inman, WR
Stevie Johnson is likely not going to play with a hamstring injury. Malcom Floyd is a question mark with a concussion. Inman has a nasty habit of stepping in to the Chargers lineup and making big plays. He did it a year ago in San Francisco. He did it a week ago against Cleveland. He’ll very likely see the field again on MNF and now that he has Gates for defenses to focus on Inman could be in for a big game as well, especially because the Steelers have had trouble with second and third wide receivers this season. According to the statistical website FootballOutsiders Pittsburgh has the league’s 5th-worst defense against WR2 in 2015.
Kyle Emanuel, OLB
After making a splash in his first NFL game Emanuel has been quiet. A shoulder injury is part of the reason. The return of Jerry Attaochu is another reason. Emanuel is back to full strength and against a Pittsburgh offense led by Mike Vick he’ll have chances to make plays. Priority one is making sure Le’Veon Bell does not get a head of steam. If Bell is not tackled immediately he’s going to make things miserable for the Chargers. Priority two is bringing Vick down before he can get out of the pocket and make plays. Vick has never been tremendously accurate on short to intermediate passes and the last year or so he’s been prone to holding the ball too long. Emanuel and company should be able to get to him. When they do they’d better get him down because if they let him loose Vick will run a long, long way.
Derek’s Prediction
The Chargers are favored by three points. That means the odds makers think the game is pretty much a toss-up (typically a team gets three points simply by being at home). The return of Gates and the history of Rivers playing well in prime time games should be enough to get the Chargers a win in what I think will be a surprisingly high-scoring affair.
Final score: Chargers 38, Steelers 34
