Wild Western Roundup
This is Part II in a three part series about the AFC West foes of the Kansas City Chiefs.
You can find Part I about the Denver Broncos here.
Part III, about the Oakland Raiders, will appear on Thursday at noon.
The San Diego Super Chargers
Brandon Chester
Key Losses: WR, Malcom Floyd, TE, Ladarius Green, TE John Phillips, TE/FB David Johnson, S Eric Weddle, S Jimmy Wilson, CB Patrick Robinson, ILB Donald Butler, DE Ricardo Matthews, DE Kendall Reyes.
Key Additions: WR James Jones, WR Travis Benjamin, CB Casey Hayward, NT Brandon Mebane, S Dwight Lowery.
After going 11-5 in 2013 and 9-7 in 2014, the San Diego Chargers fell on hard times in 2015 falling to 4-12 season due to an injury riddled roster. Don’t underestimate San Diego, they weren’t a factor in 2015 but they look to bounce back in 2016.
Any team that is faced as with as many injuries as the Chargers were, its hard to come out at the end of the season with a winning record. San Diego’s defense lost about 36% percent of its snaps from 2015. The Chargers weren’t interested in re-signing some of their own players due to the struggling defense that suffered particularly against stopping the run where they ended up as the worst run stopping defense in 2015. Although its hard to take anything positive from a 4-12 season, it isn’t hard to acknowledge how well Phillip Rivers played last season, especially considering how many different offensive line combinations the Chargers had in 2015. Rivers threw for 29 TDs and just about 4,800 passing yards. WR Malcom Floyd decided to hang it up after 12 years, and the Chargers weren’t convinced that their future heir to Antonio Gates is on the roster. Even though Pittsburgh signed TE Ladarius Green to replace long time Steeler Heath Miller. This caused them to target Hunter Henry in the 2nd round of the 2016 draft and to target deep threat Travis Benjamin.
The Chargers are banking on Casey Hayward to compliment Jason Verrett, who was a the sixth highest graded corner via PFF in 2015. At the opening of practice in training camp, the Chargers also suffered a season ending injury to 31 year old Stevie Johnson. This was the sole reason why they brought in veteran WR James Jones to try and compensate on losing Johnson for the 2016 season. The Chargers went ahead and drafted Joey Bosa with the third overall pick in this year’s draft to try and fill in some of those running lanes that they couldn’t in 2015. They also brought in 31 year old veteran Brandon Mebane from Seattle to try and strengthen that defensive line.
San Diego also re-signed offensive coordinator Ken Whisenhunt, who was the Chargers former head coach in 2013. It’s also important to note that quarterback Philip Rivers had great numbers while playing for Whisenhunt. Note: Whisenhunt was fired by the Tennessee Titans after the 2015 season. The Chargers did take the time to re-sign some of its own players in: WR Keenan Allen, TE Antonio Gates, Back up QB Kellen Clemens , Tackle Chris Hairston (who Dee Ford took advantage of last year for 3 sacks), and HC Mike McCoy through 2017.
The biggest story this offseason for the Chargers has to be Joey Bosa’s holdout. Joey insists that he wants all of his guaranteed money right now in 2016… and the Chargers seem to disagree and think that splitting up his guaranteed money in between the first two years would be more prudent. Bosa has yet to show up for training camp and no progress has been made on contract negotiations. In fact, this situation has escalated to the point where Bosa’s mom has been seen saying “We should of pulled an Eli,” via Facebook.
Editor’s Note: Mike Florio of Pro Football Talk explains that the problem with Joey Bosa not getting signed yet is far reaching into other matters, like whether or not the team will be able to get “66% of registered San Diego voters to show up and approve the measure to build of a new stadium, you would think that the Chargers would bite the bullet and get the guy in there.” When you have the third pick in the draft, you expect him to come in and make an immediate impact. When the sticking point is guaranteed money, it doesn’t look good for the franchise moving forward if you say your trying to do everything possible to win now. Obviously, “winning now” would go a long way in helping their case with the registered voters of San Diego. As time passes, getting a new stadium built will have everything to do with whether or not the Bolts bolt from San Diego… or not. Call it the “Bosa Bounce”… because the Chargers are needing all the bounce they can get from having Joey Bosa on the field ASAP. -Laddie Morse
Draft Recap: First round DE Joey Bosa. Second round TE Hunter Henry, Third round C Max Tuerk, Fourth round ILB Josh Perry, Fifth round Jatavis Brown, Sixth round pick P Drew Kaser, Sixth round pick FB Derek Watt and yes he’s related to JJ watt, Seventh round pick G Donavan Clark.