The Los Angeles Chargers, needless to say, haven't had the best luck when it comes to injuries along their offensive line—again.
Things already looked bleak when both Kayode Awosika and Trey Pipkins III suffered consecutive injuries in the team's Week 1 and 2 matchups, leaving Trevor Penning in as the starting left guard. The season-ending ACL tear that Tyler Biadasz suffered in a joint preseason practice with the San Francisco 49ers certainly didn't help the ceiling of this line, either.
But things really hit a crisis point in Week 4 against the Seattle Seahawks. The Chargers left that matchup down Joe Alt (neck injury), Rashawn Slater (high ankle sprain, placed on IR), and Penning (concussion, also placed on IR). Although we didn't know the severity of Alt's injury at the time, the Chargers were immediately down the entirety of their starting offensive line outside of rookie center Jake Slaughter and shaky right guard Cole Strange.
Starting four rookies—Slaughter, Travis Burke, Logan Taylor, and Alex Harkey—is never a recipe for success, and that bore itself out across the two matchups the Chargers were forced to go with that combination. But with Alt and Awosika set to return after the bye, Los Angeles will be left with just one non-starter on the offensive line: Burke.
As shaky as his performance was before the bye, it seems like he'll get another shot to justify the faith the Chargers placed in him this offseason.
Travis Burke has ample potential—he just hasn't been put in a position to succeed during his rookie season
When the Chargers selected Burke, it seemed as though he was an obvious mid-round flyer—a rangy, physically imposing tackle with some inconsistent fundamentals and a relative solid college track record. As long as Los Angeles could give him the time to develop, without throwing him into the fire immediately against NFL-caliber pass rushers, it should've been a more than justifiable selection.
Burke even showed some immediate upside in the preseason, allowing just two pressures across 76 pass-blocking snaps and looking more than viable in the run game. If the Chargers ever needed to throw him in for a few snaps—like they did with their jumbo packages before the offensive line got severely depleted—it seemed like they had a solid asset on their hands.
But with Alt, Slater, and Pipkins out, the Chargers had no choice but to depend on Burke for a starting-level workload over the past few weeks, and many of his inconsistencies showed up on the tape. His pure numbers were uninspiring, as he allowed nine pressures on 116 pass-blocking snaps between Weeks 4 and 6. But it was the inconsistency in his reps, especially against the Denver Broncos, that was the most concerning.
The speedy pass rushers along the Broncos' defensive line were able to simply gain leverage by moving to the outside of Burke and looping back to Justin Herbert, forcing two hurries and one sack over the course of the game.
This, of course, is to be expected from a mid-round rookie tackle thrown into the starting lineup just a quarter of the way through the season. And it's not as though Burke didn't show signs of life. He consistently won his reps in the run game, and he was largely able to adjust in pass protection against Kansas City.
But even with Alt set to return after the bye week, Burke is clearly their best option at the other tackle spot over Harkey or Taylor. Harkey allowed six pressures across his two starts, looking especially abysmal against the Chiefs, and Taylor seems to be more of a guard option for Los Angeles at this point, although both players played the tackle position in college.
Placing Burke at right tackle with the rest of the line intact may very well ease his burden, also. As much as Strange has struggled this season, he at least has an intimate understanding of what's being demanded in Mike McDaniel's protection scheme, and that should present some relief to Burke as opposed to lining up next to Taylor.
Of course, neither the Los Angeles Rams nor the Houston Texans represent easy matchups for Burke or for the offensive line as a whole. But don't take Burke's pre-bye performance as the whole picture of what he can provide to Los Angeles this season.
Slater will still be out at least two more weeks, and Burke should get his shot to truly put it all together as a viable swing tackle for the Chargers offense when they return from their bye week.
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