The San Diego Chargers have Branden Oliver as their starting RB with Donald Brown and Ryan Mathews both dealing with injuries and for Week 7 against the Chiefs he is the best fantasy football option for Philip Rivers in the backfield and owners should look at him as a prime start pick until Brown or Mathews returns to the lineup.
Oliver came in last week as the best fantasy football free agent for Donald Brown owners, as he came down with a head injury last week and into Week 7 both Brown and Mathews will be out, leaving Oliver to start again.
Oliver had another strong game against Raiders with over 100 yards again and he has a good matchup with the Chiefs and will be the lead back for the Chargers. According to Pro Football Talk, Oliver is expected to get a heavy load in the game against the Chiefs, as Ryan Mathews is still out and should be out for another few weeks and Donald Brown is dealing with a head injury suffered in the game last week. Brown is day to day with his injury and that makes Oliver a great option this week.
The Raiders have been terrible this season and they were mostly gashed in the running game over their 0-5 start and now Oliver has the chance to do it against the Chiefs. Oliver had played in three games for the Chargers coming into the Raiders game and he had his best performance before last week with 114 yards rushing and 68 yards receiving. If Oliver can get into the receiving game he will be a strong option until Brown and Mathews return and in the past two weeks he already has eight catches for over 100 yards.
Oliver is a speedy back and Antonio Gates has compared him to Darren Sproles, which is as good of a compliment as an RB can get that is the size of Oliver. In college Oliver was very strong while playing for Buffalo and he went for 15 touchdowns and over 1500 yards and was an all-team conference player. Oliver is the best starter option for the Chargers at RB this week with Brown and Mathews out and he could be a good option for the rest of the season depending on how things shake out over the next few weeks.
The Chargers offense has been humming this season and Philip Rivers has continued his comeback from last season with four straight games of a QB rating of over 120. No one has done that before and the addition of Mike McCoy as head coach has really turned Rivers around after he struggled the previous season before he was hired. Oliver benefits from how the Chargers are playing on that side of the ball and he should put up some solid numbers this week with the terrible Raiders on the schedule.
The Chargers dominated against the Jets and the team has two divisional games coming up that are very big with the Raiders and the Chiefs. Oliver likely will be starting those games and he wants to help the Chargers get things going, as they were ranked 27th in rushing yards per game with all their injuries. The team has three of the next four games on the road and three of those are divisional games. Oliver will be key if Brown can't return soon and there is a chance that Mathews will be coming back before the bye week.
