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https://www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/id/40284957/chargers-release-corey-linsley-retiring-nfl
All over but the official retirement.
Thanks for your time as a Charger, Corey. Good luck & good health. 👍🏼
Great reporting Kyle. We really gonna miss Corey Linsley. That Center position is extremely important to having a cohesive offensive line. Wishing Corey the best of health moving forward. I expect Bradley Bozeman to be the starter this year as he’s the most experienced center we have on the roster at this time. I don’t know if Brenden Jaimes has developed to the point where he’s ready to take on that position now and I also hear they’ve tried out Jordan McFadden at the position as well. Not sure what to make of that because I haven’t seen him on film playing the position yet. If I had to take a educated guess, off of reports I’ve read about at this time, I believe the best option is to get through this year and look to draft a center for the future next year. You know Harbaugh won’t hesitate if there’s a lineman worthy to be taken in the first round. I think Bradley Bozeman is good enough and experienced enough to hold it down for this season.
They could still sign Connor Williams and start the season with him on the PUP list. He is only 27. In 2025 they can use the picks elsewhere.
Center is easily the 2nd most important position on the offense. At minimum, I think having average+ center play is required if you want to be successful in the NFL.
The NFL market doesn’t agree with you. The highest AAV for a center right now is $13.5M (Ragnow). Here are how many players at the other offensive positions make more than that:
- WR – 26
- QB – 17 (with several other starters still on rookie contracts)
- LT – 12
- RT – 12
- TE – 8
- LG – 6
- RG – 5
- RB – 3
- FB – 0
I’m sure this would hold if you looked at it various different ways (top 10, average across league, etc.).
If center is truly the second most important position behind QB, it would seem that teams would be spending more to make sure they have a good one.
The highest AAV for a center right now is $13.5M (Ragnow)
This makes the neglect of the center position even more frustrating. The Telesco-led Charger team definitely paid the WR group, you could argue to a fault. All things considered, I much prefer the 2024 approach to the WR room.
Centers not getting paid does not mean having quality Center play (where play = both the players ability to call protections effectively as well as play the position) is not critical to an offense. Who do you think the Chargers offense missed most in 2023: Mike Williams or Cory Linsley? I think it’s Cory (and it’s not even close).
@kevdiego I think Linsley was much stronger at his position than Williams was relative to their peers. Furthermore, the Chargers had Palmer below Williams on the depth chart, compared to Jaimes behind Linsley. So, not surprising they missed Linsley more. That does not equate to center being more important than WR in every situation and offense… though it very well may be in the Harbaugh/Roman offense.
Generally speaking, it seems to me that the NFL positional spending markets reasonably approximate positional value.
@tau837 The argument you displayed wasn’t about how Linsely or Williams ranked amongst their peers… you suggested that league spending should be the leading indicator towards positional importance. It seems appropriate for Kev to point out that the logic doesn’t carry over to Williams vs Linsley, because it points out that there is quite a disparity between what players get paid and what value they are to their teams.
For example, scarcity is a major driver of market value. A big reason T’s get paid more than G’s or C’s isn’t because they necessarily they are more important than the other positions, but because it’s much harder to find a player with the size, length, and athleticism to play tackle, leading to them to be drafted earlier when someone with the physical and production comes along. Many college tackles have to convert to guard because of physical limitations lowering the scarcity of guards. In some instances, they convert to center. But we almost never see college centers or guards convert to tackle.
I’m definitely with Kevin here, I think it needs to be a far more nuanced topic to research than pointing to league spending. We’ve seen far too many examples of GMs regularly insisting to ignore value-based metrics and instead lean into tradition, as we’ve seen with the Jimmy Johnson Chart, which we’ve studied and shown to still align with draft-day trade values despite being the least effective indicator of future performance for the values assigned to the picks as the many other modern draft charts available.
Strictly anecdotally, we serve as an excellent example. We have been heavy spenders at some of the most important, highest-earning positions over the last 15 years (WR, T, DE), but our team success had been directly linked to whether or not we’ve had a Pro Bowl center that managed to play the majority of the games in a given season, at least since Hardwick played his last full season.
The argument you displayed wasn’t about how Linsely or Williams ranked amongst their peers… you suggested that league spending should be the leading indicator towards positional importance.
That’s not exactly what I said. I didn’t say “leading indicator” anywhere. I said I believe market spending approximates positional value. I also pointed out that not every situation and offense is the same, and center may, in fact, be more important than WR in the Harbaugh/Roman offense… though that certainly does not seem to be true based on their actions this offseason:
- They could have drafted any center in the draft other than Barton (if they viewed him as a center) in the 2nd round. Instead, they traded up to draft a WR. The exact two positions being discussed here.
- They could have drafted center at other points in the draft. They could have recognized that, given their presumably known intent to sign Chark, they already had a full WR room after drafting Rice, and they could have drafted Michigan’s center… or any other center who wasn’t drafted. Instead, they drafted a 3rd rookie WR.
- They signed Bozeman to start at center and paid less for him than they paid for Chark. They could have invested more in the position, by upgrading on Bozeman and/or on Jaimes but did neither… despite currently sitting on $9M to $10M in usable cap space.
It would be outstanding if there were some metrics that enabled us to fairly compare the contributions of players at different positions. Approximate Value is flawed, so I don’t think that does it. PFF grade doesn’t really measure contribution but rather quality of play, not the same thing given varying playing time and positional differences.
scarcity is a major driver of market value. A big reason T’s get paid more than G’s or C’s isn’t because they necessarily they are more important than the other positions, but because it’s much harder to find a player with the size, length, and athleticism to play tackle, leading to them to be drafted earlier when someone with the physical and production comes along. Many college tackles have to convert to guard because of physical limitations lowering the scarcity of guards. In some instances, they convert to center. But we almost never see college centers or guards convert to tackle.
You appear to be saying it is easier to find quality center play than quality play at other positions, like tackle. If true, this would seem to reduce the positional value of the center position.
our team success had been directly linked to whether or not we’ve had a Pro Bowl center that managed to play the majority of the games in a given season, at least since Hardwick played his last full season.
This suffers from being a small sample size. The Chargers have played 9 seasons since Hardwick retired. They have had winning records 4 times. Once was 2017, with Spencer Pulley at center… no one’s idea of a Pro Bowl caliber center. So, even though the other 3 times were with Linsley and Pouncey… that’s still only 3 times.
I assume without researching it that there are many more examples of teams having great success without a Pro Bowl center, since, by definition, more teams have success every season than there are Pro Bowl centers.
The Bolts moving up to draft Ladd doesn’t suggest to me that they believe WR is a more important position than center. I think it just highlights how Roman and Hortiz, and Harbaugh by extension, likely feel about Bozeman, someone they have a ton of familiarity with. Not only that, but you’re essentially tasking with finding at least three starting-caliber wide receivers in the draft, and so the positional upgrade over QJ or Davis (and potentially even Palmer) was likely seen as much higher than Barton/JPJ (or they just had reg flags with JPJ, something that apparently multiple teams had).
I definitely agree that there is no metric at our fingertips to come to a resolute conclusion on this. I just began feeling this way when watch Philip play, and seeing how even when we had solid Tackle play, it wouldn’t matter if we had shotty center/IOL play. He was a different QB when he had a pocket to step into, rather than being forced to roll out due to interior pressure.
I’m not necessarily saying it’s easier to find quality center play, but there are many more players that athletically fit the mold of a center, creating a plethora of “replacement” options in the NFL economy. Pair that with the fact that it’s really hard to quantify dominant center play in the NFL, and you have a sluggish market that trails other positions. It also hurts that teams only needing to start one center instead of two tackles/guards, creating less demand for the position. Thus, when you do finally have a stud center negotiating a contract, it doesn’t take much to reset the center market, as Linlsey and Kelce did while still having very reasonable salary.
The same concept works against tight ends. Their actual value to a team is immense as they contribute both in the trenches and against the pass, and there are probably very few positional players that are more important to their team’s success that Travis Kelce. However, is APY is almost half that of AJ Browns. I believe the suppressed TE market has way more to do with these factors, and a reliance on counting stats to drive market value for positional players, than I do the actual contributions a TE makes towards a teams success. It’s the teams that recognize these things and allocate their resources properly to take advantage of market inefficacies that can create winning “edges,” like the Chiefs did when they traded Tyreek Hill in his prime to the Dolphins and kept Kelce as the offensive cornerstone of the team.
I just began feeling this way when watch Philip play
I mean, sure, but Rivers and Herbert were different levels of athletes… Herbert can actually scramble productively. 😊
@tau837 True! But didn’t it give you an ulcer to watch Rivers lean over the center and make the offensive line blocking adjustments?! I never want to see Herbie go through that 🤣
I was convinced at that time that it was the primary cause for Rivers to cook the play clock all the way to “zero” as often as he did… making the snap a bit predictable.
It just seems like most franchise QB’s with long, sustained success had a center that was a lynchpin for the line. Big Ben had Pouncey, Peyton Manning had Saturday, Brady had Andrews. Brees is the anomaly of the bunch, he rotated through quite a few centers, but in his 15 years with the team, only 5 seasons were spent with a Center that didn’t have at least one Pro Bowl season with the team. Same could be said of Aaron Rodgers, he started with multiple years of Scott Wells, got late-career Jeff Saturday who still Pro Bowled with the team, had one year of a journeyman center in Evan Dietrick-Smith, and then went right into 7 years of Linsley. That’s 13 years at the beginning of his career where only one season was spent with a center that didn’t eventually get a Pro Bowl to their name.
It just seems like a position where continuity on competency breeds success, whereas other positions are easier to swap in and out.
I want Herbert to have that kind of relationship with a center like nothing else (OK, maybe a similar relationship with a TE1). Getting a franchise TE and C for Herbert would mean everything to me.
@kylededi Believe me, I want the team to find a long term, high quality solution at center.
But I find this combination of facts to be rather telling:
- Hortiz and Harbaugh talked about strengthening the OL and having strong focus on that position group, then drafted Alt at 5 rather than trading down or drafting more of a consensus pick like Nabers. They basically did what they said they were going to do.
- They could have drafted the best center in the draft in the 2nd but drafted WR.
- They could have drafted a center at any position in the remainder of the draft — 7 more picks — but didn’t. Instead, they drafted LB, IDL, CB x2, RB, WR x2. They had a lot of needs to be sure, but seemingly did not prioritize center.
- They could have signed a better free agent starting center than Bozeman and/or a better backup center than Jaimes, but didn’t.
It seems obvious that they feel they solved their center problem for 2024 by signing Bozeman, basically a journeyman free agent, for less than $2M.
That seems to indicate that Hortiz and Harbaugh don’t place a high premium on the center position. I don’t see any reason to interpret this differently.
1) Alt was as much of a consensus pick as Nabers – and enough scouts I trust (Ryan included!) gave pause with Nabers at #5, and suggested pushing Nabers further down the draft board. I was convinced before the draft that Odunze was a better pick than Nabers, but there was never a better Tackle prospect than Alt (although you can argue better RT prospects were avaliable if you don’t think Alt can make the switch, or better value picks by sliding back).
2) As I said previously, they already have (in their minds) a starting center. They have 3 starting WR spots to fill, and the current roster was severely lacking (there was no Chark, Rice, Johnson, even Ladd until they picked him). Ladd could realistically jump them all. This also could be what a GM or Coach that actually picks BPA simply looks like.
3+4) It’s a little redundant, because you’re argument as I’m perceiving it is that Jim/Joe/Roman don’t perceived the center position as important as I do, because they didn’t address it in the draft.
At the end of the day, the NFL – like most businesses – is a “who you know” business. Roman (and by extension, Harbaugh/Hortiz) know Bozeman better than you or I. They were tasked with a full rebuild/reload this offseason, and they’ve trusted him to hold the fort -for the time being.
Personally, I want further investment in the position. But I’m also going to trust these guys to get it right, one way or another – because this is the most competent coaching staff were had in who knows how long.
But I don’t think their trust in Bozeman is an indication of how they feel about the important of a strong center anchoring the line.
@tau837 Hortiz/Harbaugh were handed a below average roster with multiple position group deficits and a horrific cap situation on top of all that. There is no way they could fix all of it. Not in one offseason.
I’m not sure that I’d draw the conclusion that they have made it clear that they don’t value centers. They missed out on the highest ranked free agents (Cushenberry and Biadasz) who signed early and for decent size contracts. The Chargers had very little to spend early and were working the system for compensatory picks.
The next tier of free agents were Mitch Morse, Coleman Shelton, and Bozeman.
I agree they could have gone center in the second round, but as mentioned above they had holes all over the roster. I believe that the Keenan Allen trade was not part of their plan and a player like McConkey was essential.
The rest of the draft had several developmental centers and I doubt any would start over Bozeman. I’m guessing he is a stopgap. No different than Kristian Fulton. They will continue to rebuild in the 2025 draft, 2025 free agency, and 2024 in-season trades. Who knows, they may sign Connor Williams.
@spanos-must-go I don’t know what to tell you. There are higher ranked free agent centers than Bozeman available right now… and they have cap space to spend if they choose.
@spanos-must-go Candidates:
- Connor Williams – discussed plenty in this forum
- Mason Cole – didn’t play well in 2023 but did play well in 2022; played for Harbaugh at Michigan
- Connor McGovern – bad season last year but played well in more than 1000 snaps per year at center in 2018-2022
- Nick Gates – played reasonably well in limited playing time in his 5 year career; good run blocker
I don’t know enough to know which of these players would be a fit for Roman’s offensive scheme. Some of them will likely be better than Bozeman, and certainly could offer better depth than Jaimes.
@tau837 I’m a big fan of Williams, but he could easily miss half the year. I’m a huge Michigan fan and would be a hard pass on Mason Cole. Steeler fans would agree. I’m not happy/sold on Bozeman, but these are all mediocre options except for Williams who has had repeated knee issues.
Agree to disagree on this.
None of us know what we have in Jaimes. I think everyone on the site has expressed we’d all like to see more improvement at center depth, but we’re trying to make the point that their faith in Bozeman could be because he played well under Roman in the past.
You argued that there are better rated starters than Bozeman available, but that’s simply not true, as SMG pointed out.
Williams isn’t healthy – it would make no sense to expect him to be our starting center when his agent has expressed he won’t sign until August, when they expect him to be healthy.
McGovern lost his starting job in 2023 and then played worse in spot work, and Jets fans tore him to pieces. The write ups of his on Gang Green’s site are brutal.
Mason Cole wasn’t rated better than Bozeman last year, and didn’t post as high of a peak number in his career either.
Gates is probably the best option of those you listed, but he still never had a starting season that rated as high as Bozeman under Roman.
The “under Roman” part is extremely relevant, as it’s the basis of the entire argument- they feel like they have a great shot at “buying low” on a guy that had success in their system, and failed elsewhere.
It’s exactly what we did with Moragn Fox, and ironically, he floundered on the same team.
It can be argued, and I think very rationally, that there wasn’t a better fit at center available for everything we need right now. He knows the system, played his best within it, and can get our backup C and G’s up to speed better than if we had grabbed Cushenberry or a rookie. It’s not hard to see the vision here, and why in a transition year it might have been the best solution AND the best value.
@kylededi I already wrote this a few posts back:
It seems obvious that they feel they solved their center problem for 2024 by signing Bozeman, basically a journeyman free agent, for less than $2M.
It seems that you are agreeing with me, not disagreeing with me on that point.
Where we appear to possibly disagree is how important the center position is to Hortiz/Harbaugh/Roman. I’m sure they would tell you it is important, and I’m sure they believe that… but their actions certainly haven’t proven that. At best, the jury is out on how important they feel it is.
I think it would make great sense for them to use some of their available cap space to sign Williams now, at a presumed discount, with the understanding that Bozeman enters the season as the starter, but Williams is the possible center of the future.
Spotrac puts his market value at $8.3M/year. If the Chargers were to sign him to a 3 year deal, they would be able to start with a fairly low cap number in 2024 and gradually increase it in years 2 and 3, when the cap will be higher.
Alister pointed out in the Alt thread that Williams was better at zone blocking than gap blocking, but consider where his PFF gap blocking grade ranked among all centers with at least 100 run blocking snaps:
- 2023 – 63.9, #21 (of 38)
- As a point of comparison, Clapp’s grade was 59.2, #28
- Under the cutoff at 86 run blocking snaps, Jaimes’ grade was 47.7
- Under the cutoff at 70 run blocking snaps, Linsley’s grade was 59.9
- 2022 – 65.9, #9 (of 41)
- As a point of comparison, Linsley was 56.3, #18
- Under the cutoff at 81 run blocking snaps, Clapp’s grade was 57.0
Being better than Clapp and Jaimes is perhaps a low bar, but being better than Linsley in both of Williams’ years at center is interesting.
Williams just turned 27 in May. He didn’t play center at Dallas, so it seems reasonable to believe he still has room to improve as a center, with just 2 years at the position. With the OL as a serious organizational focus for the Chargers now, he would get good coaching and play with high quality OL teammates, and I expect he would be a top 10 caliber center once healthy.
Plus, this would presumably push the expected 9th OL off the roster for 2024, which seems to be one of Sarell, Leatherwood, UDFA Barnhart, or UDFA Patrick. Or maybe Jaimes once Williams is healthy enough. No issue there.
Combine all of this, and to me it would make sense to sign him. But I am definitely not qualified to assess if he is a good fit for Roman’s scheme, and maybe that is an issue.
@tau837 so we switched the topic to backup centers? I’d prefer a better backup Center, QB, Safety, Corner, LB, DT, RG, TE.
PFF rated starting centers across the NFL on Thursday and Bozeman was 18th. Hopefully he plays to that level in 2024.
@spanos-must-go A lot of this tangent of discussion, at least for me, has been about how much Hortiz/Harbaugh/Roman value the center position relative to other positions. Yes, Jaimes as backup center is part of that discussion.
@tau837 awesome! Thanks for clearing that up. I thought the string went from Linsley to Bozeman, but now that it has shifted to backup Centers I will step out and let you lead that charge. I am officially out of my depth.
@spanos-must-go I guess I have rubbed you the wrong way in this discussion. That wasn’t intended. I was thinking there might be a PM feature in this forum and looked for a way to send this via that method but can’t see how to do it, so posting here instead.
I will bow out of further discussion on this topic.
Oh gosh. I love offensive line talk. I’ve done some research based on some of the discussions below @kylededi I’d be interested to see what you think. I wanted to understand if the value of the C position is based on the supporting case around him, and more specifically why Hortiz and Harbaugh are happy with Bozeman in 2024.
Analysis of Centers’ Performance Across the LeagueI compared the PFF ratings of centers with the average ratings of the guards and tackles on their teams. This helps identify centers who excel despite having lower-rated surrounding linemen.
I compared the PFF ratings of centers with the average ratings of the guards and tackles on their teams. This helps identify centers who excel despite having lower-rated surrounding linemen. Bozeman is the 5th I looked at. (I find Humphrey’s relative rating interesting!)
Erik McCoy (New Orleans Saints):
Center Rating: 79.4Snap Counts: 1152Avg Guards Rating: 64.57Avg Tackles Rating: 67.05Relative Rating: +12.69Frank Ragnow (Detroit Lions):
Center Rating: 88.8Snap Counts: 1190Avg Guards Rating: 72.05Avg Tackles Rating: 69.10Relative Rating: +12.96Creed Humphrey (Kansas City Chiefs):
Center Rating: 81.4Snap Counts: 1351Avg Guards Rating: 66.83Avg Tackles Rating: 68.40Relative Rating: +3.42David Andrews (New England Patriots):
Center Rating: 71.2Snap Counts: 1050Avg Guards Rating: 50.56Avg Tackles Rating: 54.66Relative Rating: +8.39Bradley Bozeman (Carolina Panthers):
Center Rating: 62.2Snap Counts: 1148Avg Guards Rating: 45.91Avg Tackles Rating: 67.33Relative Rating: +5.58The relative rating is a metric that helps assess a center’s performance relative to the quality of the offensive linemen around them. Specifically, it compares the center’s individual performance (as measured by their PFF grade) to the average performance of the guards and tackles on the same team. This helps identify whether a center is performing better or worse than expected given the support they receive from their fellow linemen.
How It’s Calculated:Center Rating: The PFF grade of the center.Average Guards Rating: The average PFF grade of the guards on the same team.Average Tackles Rating: The average PFF grade of the tackles on the same team.The relative rating is calculated as:
Relative Rating=Center Rating− (Average Guards Rating + Average Tackles Rating)/2
Interpretation:Positive Relative Rating: Indicates that the center is performing better than the average of the surrounding guards and tackles. This suggests that the center is excelling even if the linemen around them are not performing as well.
Negative Relative Rating: Indicates that the center is performing worse than the average of the surrounding guards and tackles. This suggests that the center’s performance may be benefiting from the stronger performance of the guards and tackles.Bradley Bozeman’s performance with the Carolina Panthers in the most recent season shows his capability as a reliable center. Despite having a relatively low center rating, Bozeman managed a positive relative rating, indicating his ability to perform above expectations given the especially poorly graded and weaker guards, and tackles around him.
Center Rating (Overall Grade): 62.2Run Block Grade: 71.1Pass Block Grade: 73.8Snap Counts: 1,125 (All at Center)Pressures Allowed: 21 (5 Sacks, 9 Hits, 7 Hurries)Now let’s go back to some historical data. Bradley Bozeman had his best PFF grade in 2021 while playing for the Baltimore Ravens. His overall grade of 68.1, combined with a solid run block grade of 71.1 and a pass block grade of 73.8, indicates his capability as a reliable, but not amazing, center. He played all his snaps at the center position and the line was particularly stable. Let’s do some more comparisons.
Comparison with Other Ravens Linemen in 2021:Kevin Zeitler:Position: GOverall Grade: 75.1Run Block Grade: 68.7Pass Block Grade: 77.7Snap Counts: 1221Pressures Allowed: 4 Sacks, 10 Hits, 7 HurriesAlejandro Villanueva:Position: TOverall Grade: 65.4Run Block Grade: 65.9Pass Block Grade: 58.7Snap Counts: 1205Pressures Allowed: 9 Sacks, 9 Hits, 36 HurriesTyre Phillips:Position: TOverall Grade: 53.1Run Block Grade: 42.0Pass Block Grade: 53.1Snap Counts: 389Pressures Allowed: 3 Sacks, 13 Hits, 17 HurriesPatrick Mekari:Position: GOverall Grade: 66.1Run Block Grade: 65.0Pass Block Grade: 70.0Snap Counts: 754Pressures Allowed: 1 Sack, 1 Hit, 6 HurriesSo, let’s calculate the relative center rating for Bradley Bozeman based on his 2021 performance with the Ravens.
Bozeman’s 2021 Performance:
Center Rating (Overall Grade): 68.1Average Ratings of Surrounding Linemen:
Guards:Kevin Zeitler: 75.1Patrick Mekari: 66.1Average Guards Rating: (75.1 + 66.1) / 2 = 70.6Tackles:Alejandro Villanueva: 65.4Tyre Phillips: 53.1Average Tackles Rating: (65.4 + 53.1) / 2 = 59.25After calculations, Bozeman’s score:
Relative Rating=3.175
Weirdly enough by these metrics, 2024 Bozeman actually outperformed 2021 Bozeman even though his PFF grade was higher. He was bringing more value to the Panthers because of the poor talent around him. You could say that he was having to play at a higher level at Carolina given the shitshow he had around him.
What’s next? Well let’s make some predictions. Let’s analyze how Bradley Bozeman’s performance might look with the Los Angeles Chargers, assuming he maintains a +5 relative rating that he had in Carolina. We’ll project his performance and how it might influence or reflect the overall line performance.
Predicted Performance with the Chargers:Current PFF Ratings of Chargers Linemen:
Rashawn Slater (LT):Position: LTOffense: 88.1
Zion Johnson (LG):Position: LGOffense: 75.5
Trey Pipkins (RT):Position: RTOffense: 68.0
Joe Alt (RT, Rookie):Position: RT70.0 (Hypothetical)
I won’t put the calculations in here for the sake of boredom. But what I found was that if Bradley Bozeman maintains a +5 relative rating (so maintains his level of play relative to the players around him) his projected center rating with the Chargers would be, based on those numbers above:
Projected Center PFF Rating (Overall) Bradley Bozeman: 77.25
77.2 overall PFF grade puts him just outside the top 10 centers in the league between Ryan Kelly and Andre James, but knocking on the level of Jason Kelce and Tyler Linderbaum. (I am NOT saying Bozeman is Jason Kelce, this is based on prediction on my numbers, it is an thinking exercise, not fact).
So, if I am Harbaugh and Hortiz, and I MIGHT get top 10 Center play (per PFF) from a guy in Bozeman who costs $1,125,000, I can see why they did not hit Center in the draft.
To give that more credence, per overthecap.com, Bozeman is 48th on the overall salaries paid to C in the NFL. The 10th most expensive contract is Ethan Pocic who has a overall PFF grade of #16 (70.8). Ryan Kelly is 3rd on the list ($12,412,500 per year), and Andre James is 6th on the list ($8,000,000).
Is this blue sky thinking? Yes, of course. But running the numbers, it is just another move from Hortiz and Harbaugh that just leaves me in awe. If Bozeman produces the same way he did in Carolina, then we are in business. The Bolts offensive line is in far better shape than Carolina’s, and so is our coaching staff. Do I think Bozeman has it in him at 30? Maybe not. But even if he returns to something like +3 relative score, then replacing Linsley might not be as hard as we thought.
Another good deep-dive, Jack!
I think the heart of it is this: “Does how a player performed in previous seasons relative to his peers, have any predictive value for how he will perform relative to his peers in Season 2024?”
As your investigation has shown, Bozeman was marginally better than his peers in Carolina (2024) and Baltimore (2021). But was that because Bozeman is a good player, or was the OL talent on those teams simply poor? Put differently, can we assume that just because Bozeman’s Relative Rating in those seasons was in the 3-5 range, that he can yield a score in the 3-5 range with first round talent around him (Slater, Alt, Zion). If he can, it would be the highest PFF grade of his career, and good news for the Chargers!
There are lots of other potential variables: a big one, for me, is QB play. But so is scheme. We saw for decades how Brady’s quick time to throw and ability to diagnose the open receiver, helped out his OL. PFF endeavours to isolate OL play by grading each snap they play, but invariably how the QB performs and the way the scheme protects linemen, is going to bear on their grade.
Maybe it’s for all of these reasons – Bozeman’s historical Relative Value, the plan for this scheme to protect Bozeman’s pass pro weaknesses by running the ball and utilising play action, and Herbert’s prowess at QB – that Hortiz & Harbaugh are happy with Bozeman (at cheap cost) at least for 2024.
there was no Chark
They absolutely knew they would sign him at the time of the draft. This isn’t a big needle mover, but seems flat out wrong in your post IMO.
As for the rest, we’ll see. Actions speak louder than fan/media speculation.
Can I just say that the quality of the discourse in this thread is why Stormcloud will be the premier blog for Chargers discussion quicker than you can say “Harbaugh and Herbert Win Third Super Bowl”.
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