Here is a quick question for all of you: Have you ever experienced a situation where you were given a second chance? Most of us in life do not receive second chances. However, the San Diego Chargers have receive the possibility to undo a prior mistake by signing running-back Darren Sproles.
We can quickly flashback to last year when the Chargers had to make a decision regarding the future of running-back Michael Turner. He was a free agent, and they had a choice regarding his future with the team. Chargers general manager A.J. Smith chose to let Turner to go to the Atlanta Falcons while he kept the backfield of LaDainian Tomlinson and Darren Sproles.
Well, Turner has a career year in Atlanta where he rushed for almost 1,700 yards and was a candidate for an MVP award. The Chargers barely made the playoffs and the real question here is; what is general manager A.J. Smith going to do?
He can either decide to keep Sproles and hope that LaDainian Tomlinson can reclaim his past glory or he can let him go and pray that the backfield of Tomlinson and Jacob Hester can lead them to the promise-land.
Like I said earlier, it is rare that they people or teams receive second chances and this is a blatant showing that maybe the Chargers should keep Darren Sproles. The Chargers current depth at runningback is not to be desired and unless they make a legitimate move in the off-season they have to believe that Sproles could be the heir apparent to Tomlinson.
However, there does seem to be some dissent about keeping Sproles. I do possibly buy into the argument that since Sproles is an under-sized back (listed as 5’7), can he carry the load in the NFL? My issue with that is there have been backs in the NFL who were undersized (examples include Joe Washington and Barry Sanders) had relatively good success as the full-time starter. Also, we have seen that Sproles can carry the load. Specifically in the AFC playoffs against the Indianapolis Colts where he totaled 328 yards of total offense in relief of an injured Tomlinson.
So what is stopping A.J. Smith? Well, he has to consider that he can’t keep both Tomlinson and Sproles at the current rate of teams looking for a starting runningback. It also does not help that a fair amount of Chargers are right now either going to be free agents this year or next year.
The decision will be made in the off-season and hopefully the decision will be made to keep Sproles on the roster. If not, maybe it is shame on the Chargers for this one.
