The LA Chargers have a long lineage of great players, all of which fascinated fans of the Bolts in different eras of the franchise. From the classic legends of the franchise to the current-day fan-favorites, there have been many lovable players in Charger history.
However, there are quite a few that could realistically make the case for being the biggest fan-favorite of all-time. Depending on who you ask, and what time period they fell in love with the Chargers, many fans may give many different answers.
We decided to take matters into our own hands, setting up a 64-player bracket, March Madness-style, to determine who really is the Chargers’ biggest fan-favorite of all-time. If you have not been following along on Twitter, we are down to the Championship Round.
LA Chargers biggest fan-favorite bracket recap:
We started with 64 players that were grouped into four different six-men brackets. Region one consisted of quarterbacks, running backs and tight ends. Region two consisted of offensive and defensive linemen. Region three consisted of linebackers and safeties. Region four consisted of wide receivers and cornerbacks.
We then seeded each player in each region randomly, to avoid having any say in who would face who and in what round. We did not want to have any say in the results or how far a player went.
The bracket wasn’t the prettiest, but it got the job done.
We are trying to determine the #Chargers biggest fan-favorite of all-time (excuse the ugly bracket).
The bracket is grouped into four regions (QB/RB/TE, OL/DL, LB/S, WR/CB).
Polls are threaded below. Region 4 will be on a separate thread as we hit the tweet limit. pic.twitter.com/wnSKqfOSTq
— Bolt Beat (@BB_Chargers) March 26, 2020
Thus far, we have gone through five rounds, 62 matchups and 62 players being axed in the tournament. Two men remain — Junior Seau and LaDainian Tomlinson.
Seau had an interesting path to the championship round. In the first round, he took on recent fan-favorite Eric Weddle, who absolutely would have won multiple rounds if he did not square off against Seau right away.
Seau then went through Gary Plummer, who played eight seasons for the Chargers in the 80s and 90s, and Donnie Edwards, who had five solid seasons with the Bolts in the mid-2000s.
In the finals of the third region Seau took on current fan-favorite Derwin James, and it was not even close. In the semi-finals, Seau took out yet another current fan-favorite in Keenan Allen.
Tomlinson faced some bigger names coming from the first region. Right away he took down Melvin Gordon, who might not be popular among Charger fans right now, but absolutely was a fan-favorite before his holdout.
Tomlinson then had to square off against the man that blocked for him during his prime, Lorenzo Neal before taking on one of the greatest tight ends of all-time, Kellen Winslow. That was all leading up to the fourth region finals, where Tomlinson defeated the best quarterback in franchise history, Philip Rivers.
That was leading up to a semi-final matchup, where despite Shawne Merriman’s best efforts, LT walked away with a definitive victory.
Now we have LaDainian Tomlinson versus Junior Seau. One of the greatest running backs of all-time versus one of the greatest linebackers of all-time. If you want your voice to be heard during this vote, you can find the poll in the tweet thread below.
IT IS THE CHAMPIONSHIP ROUNDWho is the greatest fan-favorite in #Chargers history?
LaDainian Tomlinson vs. Junior Seau (Championship)Shawne Merriman vs. Keenan Allen (Third place)
Voting is threaded below: pic.twitter.com/JCeCQuT1ou
— Bolt Beat (@BB_Chargers) April 3, 2020
Personally, the greatest fan-favorite in LA Chargers history has to be LaDainian Tomlinson, just because of the era I grew up in. I know my father would pick Junior Seau.