It seems like the Los Angeles Chargers will be getting some reinforcements when they come back from their bye week.
Per The Athletic's Noah Furtado, both Joe Alt and Kayode Awosika were participants in today's practice as the Chargers round into their much needed rest time, preparing for a Week 8 matchup against the Los Angeles Rams.
Alt, who missed the last two games with a neck injury, returns after a brief period of mystery. He was sent to a specialist to help determine the severity of his injury, and there was no update on his status until this past weekend—when we found out we'd be seeing a return to action for him soon. Awosika, who missed multiple games with a leg injury in the Chargers' Week 2 matchup against the Las Vegas Raiders, also returns to action.
Needless to say, the return of both players represents a major boost to the Chargers' protection. Alt is one of the league's top tackles, and Awosika, at the very least, provides some semblance of starting experience along the interior of the line. Los Angeles, with both players plus Rashawn Slater, Trey Pipkins III, and Trevor Penning out, have been forced to start four rookies along their offensive line in back-to-back matchups.
For now, Awosika will almost certainly be slated to start at left guard, especially considering the fact that both Pipkins and Penning still seem to be set for further absences. But the buck needs to stop there. Barring any sort of disastrous come apart, Awosika needs to be the starting left guard for the Chargers moving forward.
No more rotations, and no more turmoil along the offensive line.
The Chargers need to remain as constant as they can along the offensive line over the remainder of the season
It seems so long ago, doesn't it? The Chargers had just exited what seemed like an, albeit disastrous, anomaly of Week 1 loss against the Arizona Cardinals. The offensive line had played well outside of a couple concerning moments in pass protection, and there was plenty of optimism that Justin Herbert and Mike McDaniel would click in time for Los Angeles to enter the difficult part of their schedule with a relatively clean slate.
Well, there's been five losses since that time, and the outlook for the Chargers has steadily gotten worse.
That distance also makes the Chargers' short-lived left guard rotation between Awosika and Pipkins seem like less of a storyline than it was. This team, with $100 million to spend this offseason, still hadn't established a true starting option at one of the primary positions they needed to account for in free agency and the Draft. It's hard to blame that fully on the Tyler Biadasz injury as well, because it's hard to tell if Jake Slaughter would've even truly won the job when it was all said and done.
Coming into the season, it seemed like it was Awosika's to lose, and the Chargers still insisted on rotating him and Pipkins out in the first week of the season. If Pipkins hadn't gotten hurt, perhaps that strategy would've been extended.
Granted, the Chargers haven't gotten significant enough looks at either player to come to what they wanted to in the first place—a true decision on who's best at the position. Awosika allowed just two pressures across 48 pass-blocking snaps, but Pipkins only had one truly poor rep across his 14 opportunities in Week 1. The only guard we can truly rule out right now is Trevor Penning—who's allowed seven pressures on 84 pass-blocking snaps this season.
At the time Awosika returns, it will likely be a moot point. Both Pipkins and Penning will likely still be out of the fold. But even with a small sample size—and virtually no matter how well or poorly Awosika performs in his first games back—he needs to be the starter moving forward.
This is a team that, to the greatest extent possible, needs stability and constancy. Slaughter has been forced to play next to four different left guards across only six games as he becomes accustomed to the demands of his own position at the NFL level. And Herbert, to make matters worse, hasn't had any sort of time to build chemistry or cohesion within the Chargers' protection scheme this season.
Awosika won't be an immediate solution to the Chargers' woes in pass protection, and there will likely still need to be some experimentation with one of the tackle spots until Slater returns to the fold. But Awosika, for all intents and purposes, should be walking right back into a starting job along the Los Angeles offensive line as he returns from injury.
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