Roster Math: Part 1

Fact: Football is wonderful. Amazing. Sustaining. A life giving seasonal rain in this harsh desert of existence we call life.

Sadly, not everything about football is positive and fun. The excitement of training camp is now in the air all across our nation, bringing with it the giddy anticipation of a new season just over the horizon. Looming unspoken among this excitement is the reality that professional football is still a business, one which requires cold and ruthless decisions to be made every year.

Cuts. 53 spots, that's all you get in the NFL. Arrange them however you like, but it has to add up to 53. Excesses of depth and talent at certain positions are often trimmed out in order to make roster spots available for inferior but necessary talent at others. Like most NFL team the Chargers face this dilemma every year. In recent years the cold hard arithmetic of building has forced them to part ways with many talented players, often veterans. Many of these players end up signing with and even starting and starring for rival NFL teams. In most cases I think the Bolts would have been happy to keep them, but the roster spots simply weren't there.

In anticipation of our 2009 Charger season (and to kill some time until it gets here), I've decided to post some thoughts about what direction I think the Chargers are likely to go in building their roster for this year. Given the complexity and wordiness required by this topic this will be a multi part series. All predictions here are based on the assumption that no players endure a serious injury during the preseason. I have a fairly strong grasp of the main roster but know very little about the Undrafted Free Agents or practice squad players. That ignorance may hurt my predictions, but given the strength of the roster already I doubt more than one guy makes the jump from camp fodder to the 53 man squad (again, barring injury).

Lets start with the easy positions: Special teams.

Nate Kaeding, Mike Scifres, David Binn.

All among the best, if not the best, at their position. All under contract for the foreseeable future. Unless some other position player learns to long snap as well as Binn (highly doubtful), all three are locked in with their roster spots as secure as anyone on the team.

That's 3 down. 50 spots left.