The Oakland Raiders got off to a good start early. The San Diego Chargers moved the football from their own 20 yard line to the 46, but then Rivers saw his deep ball intercepted by Matt Giordano. The Raiders then had a methodical five and a half minute drive that saw Oakland do things on the ground, with Michael Bush rush for 31 yards on six carries and also get big help from a Louis Murphy 27 yard receiver run. Palmer capped off the drive with a three yard touchdown strike to Darrius Heyward-Bey.
San Diego responded with a methodical drive of their own. Philip Rivers found Curtis Brinkley for three yards, Michael Floyd for 14 and 13 yards, and Brinkley and Mike Tolbert had some decent rushes to set up a Rivers connection to Antonio Gates for 38 yards to tie things up late in the first quarter.
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