By Joe Hawkes-Beamon

OAKLAND — With the bye week in the rear view mirror, it’s time for the Raiders to get back to the business of football. And business begins in San Diego Sunday at 1:05 p.m. PT against the Chargers. Both Oakland (2-3) and San Diego (2-4) are jockeying for position in the AFC West as they’re trying to keep pace with the division-leading and undefeated, Denver Broncos (6-0).

Oakland’s 26th ranked defense will have to contend with Chargers’ quarterback Philip Rivers, who was a passing machine in San Diego’s 27-20 loss in Green Bay in Week 6.

Rivers, who set career highs for completions (43, is also the most completions in a loss in  NFL history), passing attempts (65), and passing yards (503) to go along with two touchdowns, just couldn’t engineer the Chargers to victory against the Packers. Rivers and the Chargers were stopped by Green Bay on fourth-and-goal with 15 seconds to play in the fourth quarter.

In six games, Rivers is the NFL leader in passing yards with 2,116 and touchdown passes with 12. His 70.0 percent completion percentage is just .6  behind league leader Tom Brady (70.6) for quarterbacks with at least 150 passing attempts.

Rivers’s gunslinger mentality can get him into trouble, as his five interceptions can attest, three of which have been returned for touchdowns, a league-high.

San Diego boasts the NFL’s top ranked offense in total yards at 433 yards per game, and passing yards at 349 yards per game, thanks in large part to the return of perennial All-Pro tight end Antonio Gates.

Gates, who missed the first four games of the season due to performance-enhancing drugs, has been on a tear the past two games. The future Hall of Famer (in my honest opinion), has 18 catches for 187 yards and two touchdowns. The Raiders have had a penchant for allowing tight ends to have big games on them.

Gates is the one tight end that the Raiders can’t afford running down field freely on Sunday. In 24 career games against Oakland, Gates has 96 catches for 1,273 receiving yards and 12 touchdowns.

Those are numbers that some guys have in an season.

Raiders quarterback Derek Carr (1,171 passing yards, eight touchdowns, and three interceptions; 93.9 passer rating) and his pair of standout wide receivers in rookie Amari Cooper (28 catches, 386 receiving yards, and two touchdowns) and Michael Crabtree (27 catches, 318 receiving yards, and one touchdown) will face a much improved Chargers defense that ranks seventh against the pass, just yielding 222 yards per game this season.

Carr has been able to stay relatively healthy all season, thanks in large part to a quality offensive line that has taken all 341 snaps together. The second-year signal caller is the 30th-least pressured quarterback (25.9% of his dropbacks) according to Pro Football Focus resulting in just seven sacks surrendered by offensive line coach Mike Tice’s crew.

San Diego has just 11 sacks as a unit this year, ranking 18th in the NFL.