Brandon Mebane

San Diego Chargers: Likely the end of an era; is there any hope?

Updated Mar. 4, 2020 9:44 p.m. ET

Fansided, John Burress/FanSided via Bolt Beat

Such a sad season. We’ve been so close, so often. While I wouldn’t wish injuries on anyone, let’s play a little game to see what might have been. It’ll give us some hope for next year.

What if Tyrell Williams and Dontrelle Inman are injured at the beginning of the season and Keenan Allen and Stevie Johnson remained healthy? Both Williams and Inman have had great seasons but wouldn’t the Bolts be better with Allen and Johnson? Here’s another one. Craig Mager goes down instead of Jason Verrett. Again, Mager’s been good but he’s no Verrett. How about this… Damion Square is hurt instead of Brandon Mebane, Kenneth Farrow goes down instead of Danny Woodhead, Branden Oliver stays healthy, Jahleel Addae doesn’t miss any games and the list goes on. What would our record be? Does every team have injuries? Absolutely, but do other teams have so many at key positions?

Of course the Raiders are now saying “We’d take all those injuries to players on our team if we could just keep Derek Carr for the playoffs.” But would the Raiders be in the playoffs without Michael Crabtree and Amari Cooper, their best defensive lineman, their top corner, three of their top four running backs? I’m not sure.

The good news, it appears Tom Telesco does a pretty good job in analyzing talent. Recent drafts have been good as well as free-agent signings including in-season free agents. Casey Hayward-A+, Korey Toomer-A, Isaiah Burse-B, and so on. At any rate, there is hope. If we re-sign Melvin Ingram, Woodhead, and a few others, add some solid draft choices, develop young players like Tourek Williams (kinda hope he’s active this week), and keep doing well in the free-agent market, we could really be building something special. I just hope it’s in San Diego.

Bolts by 3 this weekend.