San Diego Chargers Announce Temporary Captains

What the heck is this?

On offense, the team voted Philip Rivers and Antonio Gates for the second straight season.  King Dunlap and Malcom Floyd will each serve as captain for two games until Gates returns in Week 5.

On defense, Eric Weddle will be joined by Corey Liuget, who will don the "C" for the first time in his career.

On special teams, Darrell Stuckey was named captain for the fourth consecutive season

Source

Temporary captains? That seems weird. I've heard about it happening when a dude is retiring or dying or something, but is Dunlap going to be real proud that he got to captain two games when Gates was too suspended to do the duties?

First of all, let's point out that the team doesn't actually need a second offensive captain. Teams aren't required to have any captains at all (as a matter of fact, the Jets have none and most teams have just three), but can have a maximum of six.

Second, I'd like to point out that this is all meaningless. Being a captain doesn't get a player any more money, nor does it improve or hurt the team and the way that they play. This article is pointless in that it is talking about, and criticizing something that is completely pointless. I am aware that captains are an arbitrary thing, and I'm annoyed by the fact that someone in the Chargers' locker room put this much thought into it (and still came up with a weird solution).

The Chargers usually have five captains. They will have five again starting in Week 5. So, why was it not okay to have four captains for the first four games? Or three? Or six? Is someone superstitious about the number five?

And, if this was done to show that Malcom Floyd and King Dunlap were team leaders (which we already knew), why aren't either of them the sixth captain in the other 14 games of the season? Are they good enough leaders to sub in for Gates for two weeks, but not good enough leaders to be season-long captains? Non-starter captains, if you will?

This is silly. It's stupid. But it's also annoying. Why bother? Why get wrapped up in this captain mess like it actually means something?

This is just one more thing that I'm eventually going to have to deal with when someone writes me an e-mail telling me how "The team was undefeated with King Dunlap at captain and is now 0-2 with Gates as a captain, just saying." Why do the Chargers consistently back themselves into their odd little corners, giving far too much focus to things that mean nothing and giving fans too much to focus on later?

These are the things that annoy me while I wait for football to get here.