Bolts From The Blue
The Chargers haven’t made much progress in the latest round of power rankings from NFL.com.
Like the rest of the NFL, the Chargers have been hard at work attempting to better their roster by making smart and savvy signings since the start of free agency. Some teams have certainly improved from where they were roughly 10 days ago, some teams are arguably the same, and others are seemingly happy making the same moves that have kept them stuck in irrelevancy.
The Chargers have made their fair share of moves thus far and one could argue they’ve maybe improved while I could also see reasonable arguments if you wanted to convince me they’re the same or even a bit worse.
In a new set of post-first week of free agency power rankings, NFL.com’s Eric Edholm actually has the Chargers moving back one spot from his last set of rankings, dropping them from 12th to 13th in the NFL.
Here’s what he had to say about the current state of the Chargers:
“It was nice to see Mike Williams come back, and Jim Harbaugh has had a crush on Najee Harris since the running back was in high school, so that wasn’t a shocking pairing. It also wasn’t stunning that the Chargers moved on from Joey Bosa. But there have been a few elements of this Bolts offseason that I was surprised by. Letting Poona Ford cross town to join the Rams was a sneaky-big loss for a defense that might have overachieved last season. Kristian Fulton was also a big part of that unit, and now he’s going to face the Chargers twice a season as a member of the Chiefs. To me, those were tough blows; they felt preventable, and I’m not sure the players they signed as replacements were upgrades. Check back with me later on the addition of Mekhi Becton. That has a chance to pan out, but his history is concerning and can’t be overlooked. I don’t know; it feels like the Chargers still have a lot of boxes to check off.”
So I mostly agree with what Edholm has to say here. The decision to ever loet Poona Ford walk out of The Bolt without a new contract with the Chargers has been the team’s biggest mistake, for sure. Joe Hortiz and Jim Harbaugh have replaced him with a pair of low-cost signings in hopes of replicating his impact from last season with multiple players. I don’t like that approach but if the goal is to collect compensatory picks, then this moves makes sense in that regard.
Now for the decision to let Fulton walk and sign with the Chiefs, I’m not so up-in-arms about it. Fulton was fine in his lone year with the Chargers, but he folded fairly hard down the stretch in some of the team’s most-important games. He was torched in the season finale against the Raiders and then again against the Texans in the wild card round. In all honesty,...
