Posts by @Sam Schneider

The Los Angeles Chargers started off free agency with a bang, establishing a defense and couple offensive line pieces that should help them transition into the post Philip Rivers era. After shoring up the right side of the line with Bryan Bulaga and trading for Trai Turner, the left side was largely untouched. That lends itself to taking the first southpaw drafted since Tim Tebow ten years ago.

The Cincinnati Bengals caught some people sleeping in the 2020 offseason, bucking the no-spend narrative that has permeated the national media when owner Mike Brown opened the coffers for Zac Taylor, Katie Blackburn, and Duke Tobin to go after big free-agents which you can read about here. That spending has filled many gaps in a defense that was tossed around like a rag doll last season and enables the Bengals to draft for the best player available scenario in the upcoming draft.

BREAKING NEWS: Mike Brown’s checkbook must have known that an Ohio ‘stay at home’ order was coming because it went out and had a little fun last week. The Bengals dropped over $109 million on committed contracts so far in the free agency period following a historically bad 2-14 season in 2019 under first-year head coach Zac Taylor.

A few weeks ago, I did a mock draft here on the Los Angeles Chargers based solely on the positional needs of the team. After several days of free agency, the Chargers instead have set themselves up to draft according to best player available due to several team-altering moves made during that time.

I saw some very strange things on Monday. Netflix automatically started an episode of The Masked Singer (spoiler: not a fan), there was wall-to-wall pandemic coverage including people doing the ‘Coronavirus Challenge’, and the internet notified me that March 16th is known as National Everything You Do Is Right Day. Unfortunately for fans of the Houston Texans, coach and general manager Bill O’Brien did not get the memo on that last one.

The Los Angeles Chargers lost eleven games in 2019, leading them to earn the sixth overall spot in the 2020 NFL Draft. Nine of those eleven games were by one score. That one score narrative (which had unfortunately plagued Philip Rivers his whole career) came to a head last year and resulted in the franchise deciding to move on and not offer him a new deal. Disgruntled back Melvin Gordon held out for the first three weeks of the season before reporting to the team. He is also headed for a new team. The Chargers’ record was a direct result of neither one of these things. The team also lost tight end, Hunter Henry, for four weeks and the offensive line was completely decimated for much of the year.