LA Chargers: “Steal a Player” series – NFC West edition

What could the LA Chargers’ roster look like with some of the NFC West’s best talent?

In a new NFL of the future, the LA Chargers get to steal one player from each franchise in the NFL. Here’s who the team should take from their NFC West counterparts.

The next edition of the Bolt Beat “Steal a Player” series comes the NFC West. The rules of this are simple, no repeated positions within the division. You will not see two players of the same position here. My personal goal is also not to simply put the best players, because that would be too easy, rather I am aiming to find the players that would best fit the current LA Chargers roster.

This division has been talked about as the division that could be the toughest from top to bottom in the entire league.

The San Francisco 49ers were one quarter away from being Super Bowl Champions, the Seattle Seahawks have one of the best home-field advantages in the league and are consistently a contender, The Los Angeles Rams were very recently Super Bowl runner-ups themselves and hope to get back to their winning ways this year, and finally, the Arizona Cardinals could be on the rise with the addition of Deandre Hopkins.

Again, I want to preface this by emphasizing the fit on the current Los Angeles Chargers roster being the most important thing here. Let’s kick things off with the reigning NFC Champions.

From the San Francisco 49ers, the LA Chargers steal…

Cornerback Richard Sherman

Some of you might roll your eyes at this pick, but if you’ve been reading the rest of this series done by my fellow Bolt Beat writers and myself you’ve likely noticed that most of us have chosen to start cornerbacks from other teams. In my AFC North edition, I chose Denzel Ward, a young man to man corner on the rise. In this edition, I’ll choose a wily veteran, who is still one of the best in the game at his position.

Sure, one could make the argument that Richard Sherman no longer the player that he was in Seattle but the Chargers don’t need that player. With Casey Hayward on the other side, they don’t absolutely need a true shut down guy, which is why they’ve been so faithful to Michael Davis and Brandon Facyson.

I personally would have loved for them to grab a corner in this year’s draft because I am a little worried about the long term plan at that position, something I emphasized in my last edition in this series.

While the long term fit isn’t great with Sherman, this front office has repeatedly shown the willingness to put short-term bandaids on long term problems with veterans in free agency, see Thomas Davis, Mike Pouncey, Matt Slauson, Tre Boston, etc. Replacing Davis with Sherman would be a huge win for this current Chargers team, even if he is a little washed up.

This past season for the 49ers, Sherman earned an elite 90 grade, per PFF. It was his highest grade since 2012, it was even 10 points higher than the grade he earned the year the Seahawks won the Super Bowl in 2014. Who knows if he’ll be able to sustain that kind of success, but it appears he has caught a second wind for his career and he obviously would be a perfect fit in Gus Bradley’s scheme.

The 49ers obviously have some talented players, and I really, really thought about George Kittle here. I think Kittle is the best tight end in the game bar none but he’s about to be due a massive payday and the Chargers are already paying Hunter Henry a lot of money. If they’re to add a second tight end, it really needs to be someone more low-key…