LA Chargers: Five takeaways from Hard Knocks Episode 1

The school of (HBO’s) Hard Knocks is officially in session for the LA Chargers.

After an offseason that felt longer than normal, football is back. Well. kinda. Hard Knocks, the NFL’s preseason staple is back to cover the city of Los Angeles. Both the LA Chargers and Rams are on the show this year, which is a first for the series in having two teams. Without further ado, let’s get to some of the key moments from the first week.

1. Tough roster cuts

Hard Knocks is known for roster cuts, but they’re never usually this early. With the new COVID guidelines though, the Chargers had to cut six players from the roster to get down to 80. We’ve gone over the list of guys here at BoltBeat, but it was interesting to see Anthony Lynn and Tom Telesco deliver the difficult news to players.

The phone calls to Koda Martin, Roderic Teamer, and P.J. Johnson were pretty swift. It was hard to tell the emotions of the players on the other side of the calls without hearing them, but it probably was very tough for them to hear their names called for cuts this early on.

Lynn hinted that the team could bring back some of these players eventually given their familiarity with the system. A foot in the door seems to be there, in case anything happens with injuries or coronavirus. With Johnson, Lynn specifically stated that he could work a little harder on conditioning and staying in shape.

Of course, the cut that got the biggest amount of attention was Andrew Vollert, mostly due to the nature of confrontation. Vollert told Lynn, “you gotta be f***ing kidding me” after learning about his cut from Telesco. While Vollert was probably not going to make the team this year, the ACL injury he suffered in last year’s preseason made me feel for him.

Andrew Vollert tells Anthony Lynn he has to be “f*****g kidding me.” When he’s cut. Surprisingly, Lynn says later he liked his reaction. pic.twitter.com/45dbNNM5dj

— Jordan Dajani (@JordanDajani) August 12, 2020