The LA Chargers have had many NFL legends and huge fan-favorites come through the ranks throughout the franchise’s history. From Hall of Famers to personality-driven superstars, the Chargers have not had their shortage of fan-favorites.
To determine the ultimate fan-favorite in franchise history, we compiled 64 men into one bracket and allowed our Twitter followers to vote their favorites onto the next round.
After four rounds we were down to our final four of LaDainian Tomlinson, Shawn Merriman, Junior Seau and Keenan Allen. Tomlinson and Seau advanced into the finals, which was predictable, and the final outcome might have been a bit surprising.
LaDainian Tomlinson was voted the biggest LA Chargers fan-favorite of all-time in a landslide victory.
You cannot complain about either LT or Seau winning this award as they are obviously the two-most iconic players in franchise history. However, it was the manner in which Tomlinson won over Seau that was shocking.
Tomlinson beat out Seau with 79.8 percent of the vote, making it an absolute landslide, which is the last thing that anyone expected.
Seau marched through the competition up to the finals. He beat Eric Weddle with 82 percent of the votes in the first round, Gary Plummer with 98.9 percent of the votes in the second, Donnie Edwards with 97.9 percent of the votes in the third, Derwin James with 65.1 percent of the votes in the fourth round and Keenan Allen with 72.3 percent in the semi-finals.
Then he got absolutely demolished by LT in the voting, who had a difficult path to the finals in who he faced but never was close in the percentages.
Tomlinson beat Melvin Gordon with 98.5 percent of the vote in round one, Lorenzo Neal with 98.4 percent in round two, Kellen Winslow with 97.6 percent in round three, Philip Rivers with 64.7 percent in round four and Shawne Merriman with 82.7 percent in the semi-finals.
It is actually surprising that Merriman had less than two percent less of a vote than Seau and that Rivers had 15.1 percent more of the vote than Seau. That likely showcases that the voting audience is a younger demographic and did not see Seau play, as what Seau meant to the team in the 90s and early 2000s was huge.
But hey, you cannot discount LT. He is my favorite player of all-time (I hit that sweet spot in terms of age) and he is one of the best running backs of all-time, despite what the NFL100 list has to say about it.
It is official, at least by our merit, that LaDainian Tomlinson is the biggest fan-favorite in LA Chargers’ history, and it is well deserved.