My day at the Chargers training camp

So, as most of you guys can tell by my name, I live in Southern California. The only time I get to see my Chiefs play are when they come over to the west coast. I suffer all the time because we only get to see them once a year here, and I have to get to sports bars extra early to request their game to be on. My brother on the other hand is a huge Chargers fan, and gets to watch his team whenever he wants. That's how I ended up at the Chargers camp today.

My brother, girlfriend, best friend and mom all took the 2 hour trip down to San Diego to catch some football. It opened to the public at 3, but practice didn't actually start till 4. I read about how many people show up at the Chiefs practices, so we were there by 2:30, of course the only people in line. We ended up getting great places to stand along the fence, right behind the defensive line. Unfortunately I couldn't write things down, so I'm going mainly off of memory and my brother and friend to give everyone an update of the Chargers in camp.

They didn't look extremely impressive today. Their workouts weren't very difficult. To be honest it looked more like a relaxed practice, like it was a bunch of vets. I'll just go down using bullets because there was quite a bit of things, but I don't think it'd be easy on the eyes in paragraph form.

The injured:

-Larry English sat out today for some reason. I looked around online while on my iphone but didn't see anything.

- Darren Sproles got hurt early in the day and didn't return. Looked like he had a slight limp, but he was pretty far off.

- Malcolm Floyd was also out, not quite sure what his deal was.

- A few other guys like Stuckey and obviously all the LTs were hurt. Nobody else too rememberable though.

The Good:

- Ryan Matthews looks like the real deal. He was making some very impressive cuts. I know it's just shorts and everything, but there were a few he could've taken to the house.

- Seyi Ajirotutu looks really, really good. He caught one of the two TD passes thrown today. He was running with the ones, not quite sure if that was because Malcolm Floyd was injured or what, but he looked good. It'll be really interestin to see him in camp.

- The undrafted FA RBs, Brinkley and McNeal, both looked pretty good. I think Brinkley has been in the league for a year, he was the one who was shot in Philly a few months back but bounced back. I was a big fan of McNeal today, he was bouncing all over the place.

-Antonio Gates, as usual, was the star on offense, catching a few nice passes.

- Mike Tolbert looked pretty good. It seemed to me like he was all over the place today, playing FB and lining up with the third offense as a RB.

- Punt return blocking. When the returner was able to actually hold onto the ball, the blocking downfield looked solid.

The Bad:

- The recievers, runningbacks and tight ends all dropped a lot of passes today. They're definitely going to miss Vincent Jackson. This is a group that Joel asked me to keep an eye on, and I can see why. Looks like they're going to be a weakness if he doesn't come back soon. Kris Wilson dropped a wide open pass, number 16 (he's not on the current roster, can't remember his name ATM) dropped a checkdown pass where nobody was around. The only bright spot came from Seyi and Jeremy Williams, who were the only two that caught touchdown passes today.

- The offensive line, at least the left side. It was kind of hard to tell how much pressure was actually getting to the quarterback since it's not full contact, but the left side was definitely a weakness.

-The defense looked pretty slow when Ryan Matthews and McNeal got the ball. I'm not sure if that's because they weren't able to tackle him or not, but he looked like he definitely had them outclassed in speed. And if he is faster than the defense, we know damn well that McCluster and Haley's comet are faster.

-Depth on both sides of the ball. Volek and Crompton are not going to lead this team. It's obvious that Rivers is a great QB and all, but if he goes down so does the rest of the team.

-The secondary also looks pretty iffy. Cason was beat a few times, but due to the recievers dropping the passes or the quarterbacks not being able to hit their targets he escaped some trouble. Jammer was solid like always, breaking up a few passes. No interceptions today at all, a few close ones but nobody was actually able to hold onto the ball. I like Weddle but he didn't do too much.

- Punt returners. After Sproles got injured they let a few different people try to return, but a lot of them were muffed or weren't able to read their blocks correctly. If Sproles gets hurt they're going to lose a nice dimension of their game.

- The runningbacks and fullbacks blocking were pretty pathetic. Ryan Matthews definitely needs to work on his technique, he was getting pushed around all day. The Chargers seem to favor smaller backs, but they were getting trampeled by the linebackers. Sproles and Tolbert were the only two that actually seemed to put up a fight.

Overall:

It looks like San Diego is going to be a solid team this year, but I don't think they're going to be as strong as they use to be. Their recievers look very weak without Jackson, their secondary looks average at best. Ryan Matthews does look like he's going to be a good runningback, he did impress me during running drills. I saw Cam Thomas up close, defensive lineman were doing drills right infront of me. He looked good, though he did slip pretty bad on one drill. Most of the guys looked like they looked up to Alfonso Boone, seemed like he was kinda leading the defensive line. Rivers missed a few passes today, and didn't go deep much at all. He only threw one touchdown pass while doing drills, in the right corner. The Chargers runningbacks and fullbacks definitely need to work on their blocking, otherwise it's going to be a long season for Charger fans. Don't be suprised to see Matthews come out when it's time for the RB to block. Overall this looked like a pretty soft practice. No coaches were yelled, none of the players were fired up, nothing. They pretty much coasted through it. If I lived closer I would check out the morning practice but I don't. Just seemed pretty suprising since Joel has said numerous times you can see our coaches on the field yelling, showing techniques, everything.

I took a few pictures but my mom has them on her camera. I'll try to post them tomorrow. Not exactly relating to football, but only two players came to sign autographs after practice- Shawnbrey McNeal and Ryan Matthews. Didn't get a chance to get an autograph from either, but Matthews came off very cocky and disrespectful to me. He wouldn't speak to anyone, and it looked as though he got pressured into signing autographs. He signed a few without saying a single word, without smiling and just walked away. Wouldn't take pictures or pose or anything like that at all. McNeal was on the other side of the field so I didn't get a chance to see what his attitude or anything were like. None of the other Chargers even looked at the fans, they blew the whistle and walked away. It suprised me a lot, because I read all the time about other camps and how the players interact with the fans. Guess that's not the case in San Diego. Needless to say, I came away impressed with Matthews skills on the field, but he definitely needs to work on his attitude.