I’s just San Diego’s luck that as the Chargers head to Los Angeles, a young Bolts player has teammates talking about Canton.
“He’s a potential Hall of Famer,” Dwight Lowery, a 10th-year NFLChris Jones Youth Jersey safety, was saying Monday about Joey Bosa.
Lowery, who’s not prone to big talk, also said Bosa may have won the 2016 NFL Defensive Player of the Year award, not just Defensive Rookie of the Year honors, if not for a contractual impasse that cost him four games and a start.
As it turned out, getting a contract done with the Spani was the roughest part of Bosa’s first year in the NFL.
Once he recovered from a hamstring injury and suited up, everything else was jake.
The defensive end trashed the tackles, guards, tight ends — anybody, really -- who stood between him and the ball.
Now, instead of returning to San Diego to resume his career, Bosa is on to the big city.
He immediately becomes the top up-and-coming NFL player in the country’s second-biggest market.
President Trump ought to Tweet something aboutMenelik Watson Kids Jersey these unfair trade deals involving L.A. and San Diego.
L.A. gets Bosa, one year after San Diegan Dave Roberts joins L.A.’s Dodgers and leads them to within two wins of the World Series despite the team’s big league record for players on the disabled list.
A bigger market should suit Bosa. Working near L.A. and Orange County money, he’ll score side deals easier than the NFL pact his pill of an agent finally hashed out with the Spani.
He likes the big stage.
In high school, he led a football powerhouse to the state title. At Ohio State, he took the Buckeyes to their first national title in 12 years, beating Alabama along the way.
For San Diegans who love football, it’s a piece of rotten luck that he’s leaving.
The Bosa exit stage north recalls Chargers end Fred Dean going north, farther, to the San Francisco 49ers in 1981.
Instead of Dean Spanos relocating the young star, it was owner Gene Klein.
Pay me or trade me, Fred Dean said, after learning that his Chargers salary was about the same as what his brother-in-law got to drive a truck.
The 49ers paid him for nearly 60 games and won two Super Bowls with Dean, who posed a health hazard to quarterbacks.
“I made it to the other side of the rainbow,” Dean said of the trade while going into the Pro Football Hall of Fame’s Class of 2008 in Canton, Ohio. “For me, that was the pot of gold.”
Forecasting Hall induction for any 21-year-old is dicey, of course.
Lowery, who couched the projection with thehttp://www.coltsshopauthentic.com/shop-by-players-21-vontae-davis-j... word “potential”, is as even-keeled as any Chargers player.
What he saw from Bosa was ridiculous.
“He can be as good as he wants to be,” Lowery said. “Hopefully, he makes the right decisions along the way, things of that nature. And, hopefully he’s able to stay healthy throughout his career.
“If he does those things,” Lowery said, “I think it’s true Hall of Fame potential.”
Bosa’s having missed training camp last year reduced expectations among veteran teammates.
Serving notice that he didn’t need training camp, Bosa recorded two sacks and two tackles for loss in his first NFL game, gashing the Oakland Raiders.
From there, he was on every offensive line’s Wanted List yet still dominated. Drawing on his Leslie O’Neal-like hand moves and other weaponry, he whipped up on most opponents.
“I was very surprised, very taken aback,” sad Lowery, who singled out Bosa’s run defense, not just the sacks and pressures.
Looking ahead, Lowery said that Bosa, although opponents will pay more attention to him, stands to improve because the Chargers’ new “4-3” defense better fits him.
The veteran laughed while recalling Bosa’s dominancehttp://www.officialchargesshop.com/shop-by-players-jason-verrett-je... of 2016. Clapping while standing at Chargers Park, the safety said Bosa’s work was worthy of applause from the secondary.
It will be Angelenos who do the applauding in Bosa’s second NFL season.