... soon to be reincarnated on grass.
This dawned on me only slowly... and even I have grown sick of my own insufferable negativity. So let me make amends:
There's a low-pressure zone forming over the West Coast & it's going to storm the league this September.
There are certainly stylistic differences between these players, but... this team looks stacked.
This song will put you in the mood, the immortal Sam Spence's "Water Bug:"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DkmDfum9KEY
Philip Rivers = Kurt Warner -- a pair of gunslingers if ever where were 2.
Kurt Warner is best remembered for airing it out. And some gunslingers have the advantage of range:
Now I know what you're thinking: the obvious pairing to Van Cleef's Colonel, is Eastwood's Manco; Blondie. But I'm not trying to win friends here.
Rivers is a much, much hotter character -- for better and for worse. And that mouth. Well there's a time for talk.
Rivers is scrappy, he makes do, and he gets by:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=meP_Ufwj-FY&t=158
What I still consider Rivers' best year IMO, 2010-11:
LT was a Jet; Antonio Gates body gave out after 10 epic weeks; Vincent Jackson held out till after that point & then some; Floyd had a similar durability; Darren Sproles had the most catches with 59; and these OTHER following household names caught 10 or more balls:
* Patrick Crayton
* Mike Tolbert
* Legedu Naanee
* Ryan Mathews
* Jacob Hester
* Craig Davis
* Randy McMichael
* Seyi Ajirotutu and
* Kelley Washington
Rivers is one crafty devil. He is El Capitan:
Remember in the end, Tuco strikes gold, too. ;)
Melvin Gordon = Marshall Faulk -- author of the 16th-fastest play in the 2016 league year at 21.95 MPH right... here:
Gordon also made strides catching it out of the backfield. Faulk ran around things... Gordon, well, he has his own way of doing things.
You feed a RB and they give you results. They're the workhorses: you drive them.
Marshall Faulk was undoubtedly an Audi R8: compact, sleek, fast, reliable, versatile. For a Super Car it's even livable they say.
Gordon can outrun you if you let him, and around you if you get in his way... just don't get in his way.
Or he'll drive through you with all the sophistication that a 3800-pound 'track day' muscle car like the Z/28 drives through tires, track pads & tarmac:
Keenan Allen is the savvy veteran ballhawk of the WR corps -- Isaac Bruce
He's not a burner, but his 2015 performance and 1 half of football in Kansas City showed a player able to take a game over.
Isaac Bruce was like an F-104 Starfighter -- slight of build, but fast and dangerous.
Keenan Allen is more like a GE-powered F-16 -- a pilot's plane. And Allen is nothing if not a technician, bolting off the line, jolting in & out of breaks, and armed with hands at least as deadly as a Sidewinder missile.
The Turf's Rookie sensation was Torry Holt -- the Chargers' is Mike Williams
Again stylistic differences come into play.
Holt was another burner -- and grew up harvesting chest-high tobacco plants by hand as a teenager, where he developed his vice grip hands. He broke ribs in the NFC Championship game, spit blood & lead the team in receptions.
His raw talent & speed were matched by a toughness you can find in Soviet Mig-29's. They turn as tight as an F-16 and accelerate just as hard, but they're built like trucks.
What is Mike Williams?
http://www.nfl.com/draft/2017/profiles/mike-williams?id=2557966
ANALYSIS
STRENGTHS
Prototypical height, weight, speed prospect.He's the prototype -- he takes off the top by pure dominance. You can find more nimble players, taller jumping ones, ones with bigger hands, ones which run faster, and quicker, but he can do damn near all of it... but he wants it more.
And he's better at using all those tools.
Just like in the United States Air Force hi-lo mix, one thing does a VOLUME of work... and it's a technician.
But one does the hard work -- and it's just the best, accept no substitutes:
Az-Zahir Hakim epitomized the suddenness with which the Rams put points on the board. On a team of burners, he burned brightest. The Chargers have TWO players in the WR Corps to match: Travis Benjamin & Tyrell Williams.
Travis Benjamin took it to the house past Davon House at 22.17 MPH in week 2 vs Jacksonville.
Tyrell Williams rounded up-field at 21.91 MPH and it was all Philip Gaines could do to push him out of bounds, week 1 vs. KC.
Dontrelle Inman assumes the blue-collar role of Ricky Proehl. A product of work ethic, drive & tenacity.
... and it's there the Greatest Show on Turf ran out of weapons.
Of course, the Rams had a Hall of Fame left tackle in Orlando Pace. The Chargers should hope to have half his talent in the new, collective hopes of Okung, Feeney, Slauson, Tuerk, Lamp & Barksdale. If they can be half, it will be an amazing line.
But the Chargers have yet more to bring.
The B-52 is a living legend; some planes as old & older than the pilots flying them. And so it is with Antonio Gates.
Hunter Henry grew up watching Gates play; just 10-years old when a much-younger Old Man Gates stormed into a Pro Bowl year in 2004.
And that brings us full circle:
San Diego Chargers 2014 Preview: The NFL's Stealth Bomber Flying Under The Radar
2014 was derailed by injuries, especially to the offensive line, and that old guard has been swept by history.
We know now with hindsight MM, Pags & that regime would never cut it.
That author called the Chargers the NFL's stealth bomber; this stealth bomber:
But that was the past. Time moves on and Hunter Henry epitomizes the new stealth bomber, ironically -- or appropriately -- dubbed the Raider:
Still shrouded in mystery, illustrations like this, are all the public has.
A mix of the old & the new -- claiming a namesake of the Chargers most-hated rival -- while the Chargers themselves ironically play out of an erstwhile HOME of said enemy: a Raider.
A stealth bomber. No one sees coming.
Thunder & lightning -- a power-running game, ball-possession wide receivers, red-zone threats, & the fleetest of feet stretching the safeties for 4 quarters.
There's a storm brewing out West. Can't wait.