I took the kids on Saturday to the San Diego Chargers Mini Camp. We had gone last year and really enjoyed it, although I had found Chelsea’s enthusiasm a bit surprising. Boo enjoyed it as well, and it’s gratifying to hear him trying to say “Football” and look excited about it – his older sister has been doing her best to get him excited about marching band and color guard.

Mini-Camp is a showcase practice and training session, and is the first chance for the public to get to see the new draft picks and free agents. The big thrill for me is getting up close to some of my favorite players – Luis Castillo, Igor Olshanksy, Shawne Merriman, and Steve Foley (the defensive line practices real close to the crowd), and to see all the others doing drills and running through some downs. The receivers were doing a great job, especially McCardell, Osgood and Floyd, but what we were all hoping for was some signs of brilliance in our secondary. Our new shining hope, Cromartie, obviously has skills, but was outclassed. Jammer was looking pretty good, though. Darren Sproles is just freaking amazing, and two another surprise standouts were Matt Wilhelm and Akbar Gbaja-Biamila – clearly, there’s some real competition going on for linebacker slots.

Our new starting quarterback, Phillip Rivers, has a great arm, but we already knew that. What is far more important, and something we can’t see in a session like this, is how he’s stepping into the leadership role, but every Charger in the news lately has been full of praise for him. This speaks well of both Rivers and the team unity. Ever since A. J. Smith decided to let Drew Brees go and floated Donnie Edwards for trade, two immensely popular players, I’ve been concerned that the Chargers might start cracking up, but they look to be holding together really well.

I started last session with a lot of excitement, thinking that 2005 was going to be our year, but we didn’t even make the playoffs due to a series of crucial mistakes that resulted in a string of narrow losses. I haven’t gotten over that, and this year I’m just not as excited. Maybe the threat of the Chargers leaving San Diego is hanging oppressively close now. But going to Mini Camp got my juices going, and I saw a lot of reasons to be hopeful again. Man, it’s such a long time until the season opener!

Posted by Greg as Family & Friends, Football at 05:23 PST

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