We’ve officially made it to the NFL Pre-Season, folks. I for one will be watching the Hall of Fame Game tonight with a smile on my face. Even more exciting than watching the Cowboys and Bengals go at it tonight, will be the Chargers first pre-season game against the revamped Chicago Bears in just six short days.

It’s been an eventful off-season and a dramatic camp. The big three holdouts are still unseen in Chargers activities. Fortunately, all of our draft picks are now signed. We had a bit of a wrinkle with Ryan Mathews brief display of discontent, but that monster bedded down almost as fast as it arose. Still now sign of Vincent Jackson, Marcus McNeill, or Shawne Merriman. Though, it seems fans are getting used to that sight. The worst thing on fans minds right now seems to be the absence of Donald Butler, who will miss the entire season with an injury to his Achilles tendon. It’s a shame. I was really looking forward to seeing our third round pick tear it up on special teams at the very least. Hopefully Antwan Applewhite can stay healthy for the whole season and put up some good numbers.

The bolts will have their hands full in their first pre-season game. Hopefully Tyronne Green, Brandyn Dombrowski, and Tra Thomas (at left tackle) can keep Julius Peppers off of Philip Rivers and Ryan Mathews. If anybody can make the team miss Marcus McNeill, it would be Peppers, who also plays the left side very well so we will probably see him at both defensive end positions. Our offensive line is going to have their hands full in this game.

Everyone should also pay close attention to tonight’s game, as we will be playing the Cowboys in week two of the pre-season and the Super Bowl Champion New Orleans Saints the following game. This pre-season will really show us what we are made of, so don’t blink or you might miss something.

Time to vote yet again, folks. This time, however, it really matters because our very own divisional All-Stars will be in the mix.

AFC West All-Stars

VS

AFC North All-Stars

Also in the mix will be the NFC North vs. the NFC South in another poll.

Be sure to check out which Chargers made our AFC West team thanks to your votes! Click the link below to show your AFC West love!

AFC West All-Stars VS. AFC North All-Stars

In case you haven’t noticed, our FanSided.com Divisional Smackdown has begun. All of that voting for our AFC West All-Stars comes down to this. As of yesterday, we began voting between divisions to narrow down the best divisions in the AFC and NFC respectively.

Though the AFC West is not involved until round two, be sure to stop by the main page and vote for who you think are the stronger divisions in the AFC and NFC. Lets get ready for round two when we can establish our dominance.

Thanks for participating guys. Do yourselves a favor and remember this site:

www.fansided.com

We are not just voting there, use the site to check out our other team blogs and learn more about our enemies all around the league. Know your foe, people. Happy voting.

A lot of people have asking me about V.J. lately. It’s not often that we get a bone thrown at us that hasn’t been thrown by A.J. Smith before, so I don’t know why so many are so confused. A lot of people are confused about what’s going on or whose fault this is. If you really can’t grasp that the whole thing is situational then I can see why V.J. and Big Mac (McNeill) haven’t come to their senses either.

I have explained the whole thing before in previous posts, but now you get to hear it straight from the general managers mouth. A.J. Smith recently said:

“In a normal year, we would be doing contracts.”

The problem is, that this is NOT a normal year. This is the final league year of the collective bargaining agreement and until a new one is put into effect we cannot be sure that there will even be an NFL season taking place in 2011. You can’t expect to be paid in a year where you might not even be playing the game, and you really can’t expect Smith to change his stance on it. He will even tell you:

“My philosophy has not changed. I want to identify people and keep them. Under normal conditions, maybe we would have signed them. It’s a unique year, a difficult year.”

Even if this was not the case, even in a normal year, I am positive that Antonio Gates and Marcus McNeill would both be getting contracts before Vincent Jackson anyways.

The one thing that is really taking leverage away from Jackson is the three game suspension that he has looming at the beginning of the season. It makes V.J. vulnerable to further toying from A.J. and his puppet strings. Jason La Canfora of NFL.com notes that:

According to the roster exemption rules in the CBA, if Jackson doesn’t report to the Chargers by at least the day before their fourth preseason game, then whenever he does sign, he still could be placed on the roster exempt list for an additional three games — without pay. The Chargers, who already have lowered their tender and are locked in a bitter feud with the Pro Bowl receiver, would have to notify Jackson and the NFL Players Association of their intent to place him on roster exempt at least five days before the team’s second preseason game.

Ouch. After lowering the tender and bringing in Josh Reed, this will just place a little bit more of managements foot on top of the receivers potential contract.

Still think that Jackson has a bit of leverage left? Guess again. If he waits to sign his tender until week ten as previously expected and then placed on the teams roster exempt list, then the accrued season would be unobtainable. The only way to get the accrued season would be to show up and sign in week seven. That’s three weeks earlier than expected. Combine that with the suspension and you will see that there is NOTHING (at all) to gain from holding out.

Good morning, Bolt Beat fans! I would first like to thank all who participated in this exercise and voted for who they think are the best players. From now on, we know we can count on your guys to break the tie every time our staff has some sort of disagreement on the players. Naturally, it’s hard for a Chargers fan, Raiders fan, Chiefs fan, and Broncos fan to all agree on one thing. We got close, but you guys were the difference makers.

Now, it’s time to check our polls for the last three days of voting so that we can tally up the votes and finalize our All-Star roster.

Day 1 of voting: Kicker: Nate Keading- 37 Votes. Sebastian Kanikowski- 124 Votes

Day 2 of voting: Nose Tackle: Cam Thomas- 28 Votes. Tommy Kelly- 39 Votes.

Day 3 of voting: Right Guard: Ryan Lilja- 129 Votes. Chris Kuper- 42 Votes.

We now have our final three roster spots filled up. Thank you guys for participating. Soon we will be comparing our rosters with similar ones from other divisions until we find the most dominant division in the NFL today.

Not to mention, we are a short time away from training camp and the start of the season. Time to start getting excited.

Dust off the foam fingers, polish your helmet’s (no, not that one), and start biting your nails… Now!

Good morning, Bolt Beat fans! I may not be a morning person, but 24 hours from now, I will know the full and presumably final roster for our AFC West all stars. That’s definitely enough to get my ass out of bed today to start this poll.

At the time of this writing, Tommy Kelly is ahead of Cam Thomas by a margin of eleven votes. It would appear that we have an underweight nose tackle voted in. For the purpose of the exercise, try not to be offended if I refer to Kelly as Cam Thomas-Lite or Diet Cam Thomas. All of the strength and flavor with less weight and less wins. Why is this making me want a beer? Hmmmm… Moving on.

Today, we figure out who will be our right guard. Let’s meet our candidates: Ryan Lilja of the Kansas City Chiefs and Chris Kuper of the Denver Broncos. Yes, I know they are not Chargers and both of their teams have been unable to compete with us for the division out of late, but these are both great linemen who deserve to be in the conversation. Honest!

Ryan Lilja and his career speak for themselves. Barely eligible for this AFC West voting, as Lilja just became a Chief in this past off season. Or became a Chief again, depending how you look at it. Kansas City picked him up as an un-drafted free agent in 2004, after which he was placed on the practice squad and waived that September, before being claimed off waivers by the Indianapolis Colts. While in Indy, he started 29 out of 66 games and went to two Super Bowls, one of which was a victory and a ring-worthy performance. After this previous Super Bowl, which was not a victory for the Colts, Lilja was released on March 8th and signed with his hometown Chiefs eight days later.

On the other hand, our other candidate, Chris Kuper, has been with the Broncos ever since he entered the league in 2006. Though, he has not had a career that is as long or high-profile as Lilja, this talented right guard has only given away five sacks in 42 career starts. For a guy so young, that’s outstanding. Toss him in there with Ryan Harris and Ryan Clady and you’ve got probably three of the most talented younger offensive linemen.

I gotta say, in spite of Denver bombing last season after starting it off with six straight wins, I have to give the edge to Kuper. The Colts offensive line was part of the reason that they lost this past Super Bowl. Kuper, who has always been a consistent force and displays the talent of a much more experienced player, is certainly the player that I would rather have in this spot.

I guess I am done throwing my opinion out there, time for you to express yours. This is the last day of voting!

Ready… Set… Vote!

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Greetings, and salutations, Charger fans! As we begin day two of the voting process for our AFC West All-Stars I want you to start thinking about the big men on the field. We are voting in nose tackles today and right guards tomorrow.

I suppose I should begin the day of by explaining our choice of defense.

We are going with the 3-4 system, because three out of four teams in the AFC West use that system. simple as that. Sorry Oakland, but you’re the odd team out.

That still doesn’t mean that Raiders defensive players can’t get elected, Richard Seymour came from playing a 3-4 in New England and is very adept at the system, but that’s not who we are voting on today.

For some reason, we were unable to decide between Cam Thomas of the Chargers and Tommy Kelly of the Raiders to anchor that nose tackle spot.

Of course, Cam Thomas is a rookie, but between him and Tommy Kelly, the much larger Thomas would be a better fit in this type of system. Rookie or not, he would be the most adept to man the position. For those of you who have seen him, Cam is two inches shorter than Kelly, but the Chargers space eater is 30 lbs. heavier and would be harder to double team in a 3-4 or 3-3-5 situation. Anything with only three down lineman, really, give me Cam Thomas any day.

Though, Kelly did put up some decent numbers last season. His 55 tackles and single sack are gonna get even better since the Raiders drafted Lamarr Houston, who I would love to see playing next to Kelly. Throw Rolando McClain in there and you’ve got a much scarier front seven in Oakland. This unit might do some justice to perennial All-Pro Nnamdi Asomugha. It’s nice to have a shutdown corner. I’ll bet Nnamdi would love to win some games this year.

Now, as I seek out a place for lunch that doesn’t have Raiders fans working in the kitchen, I will leave you with our poll. Make your vote count. This has been a fun exercise so far and I can’t wait to get these rosters done so that we can start comparing them to the other divisions. It will be nice to show the world that the AFC West has some serious players and is about to get more competitive. Well, at least slightly more competitive. These past few years you might as well have addressed our division as the “AFC San Diego and Others” division.

Congratulations to Sebastian Janikowski for beating Nate Kaeding in yesterdays voting.

Results from yesterday: Kaeding- 37 votes. Janikowski- 123 votes.

It would seam that the playoff loss to the Jets is still on the back of our minds, and our truck windows (hi Philip), and rightfully so. Some might argue that if the Chargers and the Raiders swapped kickers, then the Chargers would have more than likely gone to the Super Bowl. I believe it was a fellow FanSided writer over at JustBlogBaby.com who I first saw shed light on that scenario. Sorry Nasty Nate, the fans have spoken. Hell, I must admit that I was half tempted to nominate Nick Novak for the Chargers instead, but no. Alas, I took the high road. Did it really matter? It rarely does…

Now, we bring up the next round of voting. Let’s pick our nose tackle, people! Ready… set… VOTE!

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Today, we start voting for the final three undecided positions for our AFC West All-Stars. As you know, our staff had it’s own voting and finalized all but three positions on our roster.

Todays voting will choose our kicker. This poll will be closed tomorrow morning and a new one will open so we can vote for our nose tackle. The final poll will be placed here, you guessed it, on Thursday morning.

So, between San Diego Chargers Nate Kaeding and Oakland Raiders Sebastian Janikowski, who would you rather have booting the ball through the uprights?

Happy voting. This has been a fun project. Thanks for helping us break each tie. We would probably just keep arguing about them if we didn’t have this vote. That still doesn’t mean you can’t argue in the comment box! Whatever ends up as the result will be your guys’ fault doing anyways.

Enjoy. Also, don’t forget that once all of our divisional All-Stars are chosen, you will get to see each division square off on the main page. Gotta love FanSided.

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Hey, guys. Hope you all had an awesome 4th of July. Sadly, the holiday is over and it’s time to get back on the ball. Free agency is full of twists and turns in the NFL and NBA alike. I, for one, will be keeping track of both leagues for some time.

Which brings me to our latest little project. Myself, and the three other lead writers for our AFC West blogs are putting together an All-Star team. Yes, you heard it right. Our FanSided.com writers for the Chargers (BoltBeat.com), Chiefs (ArrowheadAddict.com), Broncos (PredominatelyOrange.com), and Raiders (JustBlogBaby.com) were all ordered to get together and agree on one list.

Yes, you guessed it. We need some of your help. Naturally, we couldn’t come to a consensus. Chargers, Chiefs, Broncos, and Raiders fans don’t seem to see eye to eye.

Shocking, huh?

In other words, it will be left up to you, the readers, to vote on what we couldn’t agree upon. We’ve gotten almost the whole squad slotted and in order. However, we have three positions that are tied up in our votes, so we will bring it to a fan vote starting tomorrow and going through Thursday.

Of the three positions that were previously un-agreed upon, you guys will get one day to vote for each of them.

Make sure you are all over our AFC West blogs this week so you can have a part in choosing the final three starters that came down to ties in our staff voting.

The first poll will be up and about tomorrow morning. You will have 24 hours to vote from 10AM Pacific Standard Time until the next polls are put up on Wednesday and Thursday mornings respectively.

Have fun and make your opinion count. The sooner we finish our list of starters, the sooner we can start comparing it to the other divisions now and throughout the year.