Coming off their third straight victory against the Jacksonville Jaguars on Sunday, the San Diego Chargers will play another home game when the struggling New York Jets come to town this weekend.

The Chargers red-hot start (3-1) is largely due to the amazing play of quarterback Philip Rivers who threw for 377 yards and three touchdowns in the Chargers 33-14 win over the Jaguars.

Rivers is entering week five of the NFL season with the highest QB rating in the NFL at 114.5. His consistent play in the throwing game has been vital because of the devastating injuries of their two starting running backs, Danny Woodhead (out for the season) and Ryan Matthews. In addition, running back Donald Brown who has stepped in for Woodhead and Matthews has struggled to get into any sort of rhythm so the Chargers have to be more reliant on Rivers and his receiving core.

Both have not failed to produce as Rivers has been in perfect sync with receivers like Eddie Royal, Malcolm Floyd, Keenan Allen, and veteran tight end Antonio Gates. The play of Rivers combined with their strong defense has led to these victories early in the season. However, if the Chargers expect to make a deep run into the playoffs they will need someone in their running game to step up.

This upcoming weekend, the Chargers will be playing the Jets who started the season with a win and have since struggled mightily in losing their last three games.

Unlike the Chargers, the Jets passing game has been very inconsistent with second year quarterback Geno Smith throwing five interceptions so far and not being able to maintain a tempo throughout the game with his team. To add to the fire, during the Jets 24-17 loss to the Detroit Lions, Jets fans began to hint at playing newly acquired veteran, quarterback, Michael Vick.  These fans were heard chanting, “We want Vick,” throughout MetLife Stadium in New York. Thus, the Jets come into Sunday playing a confident Chargers team that has excelled in all facets while the Jets have some internal controversy that they need to figure out.

If the Chargers are able to keep up their play on both sides of the ball and frustrate Geno Smith, they should be able to pull out their fourth straight victory.

However, the one problem that the Chargers will face is a very strong Jets defense. The Jets are ranked third in the least amount of yards given up per game and lead the league in run defense. This could lead to some issues if the Chargers are unable to establish a dominant pass game that has carried them in the previous games as their run game is in dead last in yards per game. It seems that again the Chargers will need to heavily rely on Rivers to carry the offense and be sharp to have the success on offense that they had last week. Without a doubt, Rivers has been one of the premier quarterbacks through the first four weeks of the NFL season so if there is someone you can rely on to stay consistent it would be him.

Overall, the Chargers are faced with a very winnable game if their defense can play even close to the level that they have in the last couple weeks and Rivers can continuously hit his deadly receiving targets.