NFL Power Rankings, Week 1: Titans ink Clowney, Chiefs remain clear favorites

Full disclosure, it’ been hard for me to get behind the Los Angeles Chargers’ overall potential throughout the entire offseason. While there are clearly nice pieces on the offense with Keenan Allen, Austin Ekeler and Hunter Henry as the team also improved the offensive line, the quarterback position has continued to concern me.

Tyrod Taylor is a great veteran stopgap. He’s a game-manager at this point of his career, a player who isn’t going to make mistakes and won’t lose you many contests. At the same time, he’s also not going to win you any games either, and therein lies the issue. For the Chargers to be truly competitive in 2020, they would need their defense to be elite.

To be sure, a fully-healthy Chargers defense had that type of potential. Whether it’s Joey Bosa and Melvin Ingram off the edge, rookie Kenneth Murray at linebacker or a versatile group of defensive backs on the back end, they are loaded with talent. But the Derwin James injury, which has ruled him out for the entire year, terrifies me.

James was the linchpin of what this defense was capable of, the versatile glue that could make everything click. Without him on the field, the defense drops from being great to being good. And with Taylor (or a not-yet-ready Justin Herbert) at quarterback, that puts a relatively low ceiling on the Bolts this year.