No, the Chargers first round draft pick this spring won't be a running back. That's the old way of thinking. The new concept is this: a great big strong defensive tackle. That came about when General Manager AJ Smith had a change of heart and decided to release veteran Jamal Williams Thursday and protect Darren Sproles.
Williams plugged the middle of the Chargers defensive line for most of 12 years, though he did sustain injuries here and there of the sort one would expect from someone doing battle in the NFL's rugged trenches. The end became apparent last season when he was injured in the season-opener in Oakland and missed the rest of the year. It used to be easy to predict the Bolts' fortune. If Williams was healthy, the defense was good and they won. If Williams was watching from the sidelines, the stoppers couldn't stop anyone and they lost. The 2009 season was different in that, after a couple early stumbles, Smith came up with the revolving "stop gap" and the Chargers defense ended up being pretty good without Williams -- and the Chargers won a lot in the regular season.
The rotation that worked on the front wall was no permanent solution, however, so the Chargers powers-that-be either had to determine whether Williams would return to health or if it was time to move on. The answer is now the latter.
Strangely enough, we could go into the 2010 season with Williams wearing powder blue and Sproles playing elsewhere. Smith reportedly didn't rule out re-signing his nose tackle later in the off-season. Also, the protection on Sproles only allows them to match another team's offer -- it doesn't guarantee that they will if actually faced with such a situation.
So say goodbye to Georgia Tech's Jonathan Dwyer as the ball-carrier of the future. Say hello to a defensive tackle.
That opens a whole 'nuther possibility -- that Smith will package LB Shawne Merriman and someone else into a package deal to move into the top five of the draft and get one of the real big-time interior linemen. We'd sniffle a little less at the loss of Williams if that happened.
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Chris Young's stat line in one inning on the mound in the Padres' spring opener against the Mariners doesn't look like much, but the fact that he was happy with the way his arm felt was good news. Young, if my memory serves, never fared well in Arizona in March. I won't be too concerned about production for another couple starts.
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If someone comes to you excitedly and says some bracketologist just included San Diego State's men's basketball team in their "last four in," don't listen to them. To me, "last four in" is the equivalent of "those four that will get knocked down to the NIT when also-rans start winning conference tournaments." I know some of those guys who make such picks have four entrants from the Mountain West, but its simply not going to happen. The Aztecs simply have to win the conference tournament. Now that could happen.
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