Los Angeles Chargers Ranked as 8th Best Roster in the NFL

Pro Football Focus, in partnership with ESPN, recently released their rankings of the most talented rosters in the NFL (Insider Only). It includes some real head-scratchers, both in terms of teams and in terms of player rankings, but I’m mainly going to focus on what they said about the Los Angeles Chargers today.

First of all, the Chargers ranked 8th in the league in terms of talent on the roster.

How is this possible when the team has gone 9-23 in the last two seasons? This is mostly a factor of a new “Best Players on the Team” in Joey Bosa.

Out of 12 “starters” listed on offense, only four were Below Average and only two were rated as Poor.

Obviously, there are not 12 starters on offense. The Chargers get some added benefit here in that PFF was allowed to include backup TE Hunter Henry into their rankings.

Also, it’s worth noting that two of the players listed as Below Average (Spencer Pulley, Kenny Wiggins) are probably long shots to actually be starters this year.

Most of the offensive players (5) were rated as Average, with only Melvin Gordon and Matt Slauson coming in as Above Average.

The strength of the Chargers is their defense.

Half of the 12 defensive starters listed were rated as Above Average, and while I could argue that Denzel Perryman should’ve been included in that instead of being ranked as Average, I could just as easily argue that Dwight Lowery didn’t deserve his Average grade.

There are only four players on the Chargers defense that graded below Average, and two of them were rated as Poor. Fortunately for Chargers fans, I don’t suspect one of them (Jerry Attaochu) will actually player a starter’s role this season.

Here’s where you’ll lose all respect for this ranking...

It’s fun to think of the Chargers as the 8th most talented roster in the league, and maybe they have that, but the same people that ranked them that way are the same that ranked Jason Verrett as being Below Average. Rubbish! Hogwash!

(Considering Keenan Allen’s Average ranking, you’d have to think that PFF is factoring in the potential health of these players, right?)

This ranking is dumb. I hope you had fun wasting your time thinking about it.