Morning Dump

The San Diego Chargers put out a statement to express their grief over the sudden passing of the wife of free agent defensive tackle Tommie Harris. Ashley Harris died Sunday in Oklahoma at the age of 29 after suffering a stroke or a brain aneurysm, the team said.

Let me give it to you straight. The Chargers must re-sign Vincent Jackson — for their sake, for the sake of A.J. and Norv, for the sake of San Diego’s future well-being, and for a little football peace in my (and your) time.

Nick Hardwick has a new son and a renewed outlook, and he said Monday what everyone who knows him expected all along.

There’s no doubt the Chargers would like Jacob Hester to be a Charger for a while. However, complicating that desire is the fact he’s going to become a free agent on March 13. Some may bring up the idea that the Chargers put the franchise tag on him given that fullbacks don’t get paid very high salaries in today’s modern NFL. Part of that statement is true. Fullbacks do not get paid comparably high salaries in the NFL. They really never have. Lorenzo Neal signed with the Chargers in 2003 having blocked for four 1,000 yard rushers and coming off a Pro Bowl season with the Cincinnati Bengals. He signed for 3 years, $4.5 million. He had also bounced around the NFL playing for 5 different teams in a 10 year career before arriving in San Diego.

The draft is a funny thing. While it is critically important for the long term health of a team, and it’s pretty easy to evaluate after 3 years or so, it does seem pretty hard to get a consensus on how good a team is at it. History tends to get revised based on someone’s point of view. Remember how we traded sooooo much to get Ryan Mathews? (Really we gave up the #28 and #60 pick plus Charlie Whitehurst and Tim Dobbins and some lower round swaps for the #12 pick, not too bad). Remember what an absolute pile of crap the 2008 draft was? (actually we did manage to get two very good starters out of that draft, but otherwise it did stink). While both sides of those type of arguments have merit, the best way to evaluate a team’s drafting is by looking at the whole landscape over the course of the years.

After finishing with a disappointing 8-8 record, without a postseason berth, the San Diego Chargers are sure to see their fair share of personnel change this offseason.