The Future of the San Diego Chargers Backfield
Jun 18, 2014; San Diego, CA, USA; San Diego Chargers coach Mike McCoy at minicamp press conference at Chargers Park. Mandatory Credit: Kirby Lee-USA TODAY Sports
With the Chargers 2014 season finally over and done with, general manager Tom Tolesco and the San Diego Chargers front office can now make the critical decisions necessary for 2015. One of those tough decisions will be the future of the San Diego Chargers backfield.
The entire season, the Bolts never truly had a reliable starting back.To make matters worse, the Chargers former first-round draft choice in Ryan Mathews is now a free agent. The problem with the Chargers is that they have a lot of backs with talent, but not one main back. Typically I would say they’re fine with just Mathews, but he’s a potential free agent and may no longer be part of the Chargers organization.
Mathews is the best back by far in comparison with all the rest of the Chargers running backs. A possible option for the Bolts is to offer Mathews a max contract, but there are no guarantees that he will remain healthy or if he will produce like he did. In 2013, he suffered injuries and this season he couldn’t stay healthy. In essence, Ryan Mathews is the definition of injury-prone. Taking a chance on Mathews is a big risk, but one that could potentially pay off. This season he did rush for a 4.6 yards per carry average and probably would have gone for over 1,000 yards if he had remained healthy.
At the same time, I believe that Branden Oliver and Danny Woodhead are both great backs. They’re fast, small, compact and have supreme catching ability. Problem is though, I wouldn’t trust those backs with a full season’s workload that a starting back would endure. Of course, Woodhead hasn’t been a pure starter ever in his career so we have no idea whether or not he’d be able to handle it. Oliver was the starter for the latter half of the season, but he had help from multiple other backs. As well, the Chargers still have to worry about Ronnie Brown and Donald Brown in the mix.
In the long run, I don’t believe that the Chargers should waste their first-round selection on a running back. Their true need for the draft should be at the offensive line position instead of at the running back position. I do agree that they should draft a running back some time during the draft, just not during the first round. It all depends though on when players fall and who’s still left on the board. I think the Chargers should wait until after free agency so that they can decide which round to draft their running back seeing that there are some great free-agent running backs at the moment.
Next: Potential Free Agent Fixes