Alliance... » A year ago at this time, the Los Angeles Chargers‘ lives

COSTA MESA Youth Thomas Davis Jerseys , Calif. (AP)the upheaval of their franchise relocation season. Some were still looking for houses, and others needed to get kids into school.When Philip Rivers and his teammates reported to the same sunny spot Saturday for the first practice their second training camp in Orange County, pretty much everyone was feeling perfectly at home.”Now it’s just football,” Rivers said. ”There’s not as much wondering about schedules and what the practice field was going to be like. There’s not as much of that uncertainty. It’s all football now. There’s definitely a level of comfort that I think we have now and we can just put our focus on the field.”A year after leaving San Diego, the Chargers are eager to take another shot at living up to their enormous potential. Although they already lost two key players to injuries before training camp even began, the Bolts are aware they’re still a popular pick to be a playoff team and likely even a Super Bowl contender.Those are nothing less than the Chargers’ own internal expectations, and they’re much more interested in proving themselves right.”We just want to be the team we know we can be,” running back Melvin Gordon said. ”Yeah, expectations are high, but we make them higher than other people make them.”The 36-year-old Rivers has started every game for the Chargers since 2006, and he realizes he has fewer and fewer shots at reaching his first Super Bowl. He won the AFC West and appeared in playoff games during each of his first four seasons as a starter, but the Bolts have made the playoffs just once since that run ended in 2009.Rivers understands the excitement around the Chargers after their 9-3 finish to last season. He even welcomes it.”It’s interesting, because it’s been a while,” Rivers said. ”I’ve been on some teams here that had those expectations, and we went out and did it year after year there for a while. It’s been a long time, though. There aren’t many guys that have been through that on this team. … We know there are a lot of expectations outside. We have those same expectations on the inside.”The Chargers return with remarkable continuity from last season’s team Thomas Davis Jerseys Stitched , with veteran center Mike Pouncey joining a largely unchanged offense and rookie safety Derwin James moving into a solid defense. Their biggest personnel losses happened recently, and did nothing to shake the Chargers’ reputation for soul-crushing injury problems: tight end Hunter Henry was lost for the season in May, and former Pro Bowl cornerback Jason Verrett tore his Achilles tendon Friday in a conditioning test.The coaching staff also stayed essentially intact, with second-year head coach Anthony Lynn keeping coordinators Ken Whisenhunt and Gus Bradley. Lynn said he feels more confident as a head coach after getting through his first year in good form – and even finishing up his college degree along the way.”I definitely feel a little bit more comfortable knowing what to expect, not moving and not living out of boxes, knowing where we’re going to training camp, and (having a) similar coaching staff and players,” Lynn said.Although the stands at Jack Hammett Sports Complex were filled with an estimated 7,000 fans for the first practice, the Chargers realize they’ve still got plenty of work to do if they hope to win over the Los Angeles marketplace in the coming years – particularly with the Los Angeles Rams looking like a potential Super Bowl team as well. Fielding a winning team this fall would be the most potent way to do it, the Bolts players and coaches agree.But after four consecutive non-playoff seasons, and after the challenges of their relocation year, the Chargers are grateful to settle in for a few weeks of training camp with their thoughts on nothing bigger than the next practice or scrimmage.Rivers even had a catchphrase for it: ”Enjoy the boring.”— Get to know the giant offensive tackle called Little."As we roll into February, draft season is in full swing with the NFL Combine in Indianapolis just a few weeks away. The Senior Bowl in Mobile, Alabama has come and gone, as well, with new names rising up draft boards while others may be finding themselves falling or staying a bit too stagnant for their liking.Here at Bolts From The Blue Youth Tyrod Taylor Jerseys , we are chomping at the bit to get the gears turning on our own draft coverage where we hope to bring you the content you deserve and the content you yearn for while maintaining the tightest coverage on what the Bolts are doing through the months leading up to the 2019 NFL Draft in Nashville, TN.To satifsy some of your smaller cravings for draft content, I hope to put out a number of short-and-sweet draft profiles to get you all up to date on draft prospects you should be aware of that could potentially don the bolt this year and for years to come.First up is Ole Miss’ Greg Little, a massive offensive tackle that could be the answer to the team’s needs at the right tackle spot opposite Russell Okung.At 6-foot-6 and 325 pounds, no one needs to ask what position Little is best suited for. It still amuses me that we get to right about such a large player with the such an oxymoron for a last name. The former 5-star recruit and top-ranked offensive line recruit in the country came to Oxford, Mississippi by way of Allen High School, the perennial powerhouse down in the heart of Texas. He was also the number two recruit in the entire country by Scout and ESPN.As a true freshmen, Little played in every game during his first year on campus with five starts. That year, the Rebels possessed the 13th-ranked passing offense in the country (314.9 yds/game) and allowed the fewest tackles-for-loss per game (4.67). For his efforts, he was named a Freshman All-American by Rivals.com and a Freshman All-SEC first team selection.In his sophomore campaign, Little started all 12 games at left tackles and was named a second-team All-SEC selection by the AP and the Coaches. Prior to the season, NFL.com named him the 31st-best player in college football.In 2018, after being placed on numerous preseason All-American teams, Little helped protect senior quarterback Jordan Ta’amu as he got to chuck the ball around to the best wide receiver trio in the country.Little lived up to almost all of his preseason hype as he was named a first-team All-Sec selection and a second-team All-American pick by numerous publications, including the FWAA, CBS Sports, and Phil Steele.The former top prospect was definitely a work-in-progress and it showed during his first two years at Ole Miss. No matter his shortcomings Tyrod Taylor Jerseys Stitched , Little’s God-given physical talents are the types of things you cannot coach. When you throw on the tape, your first thought is, “a man that large shouldn’t be able to move like that.” His fundamentals, footwork, hand-technique, it was all sushi-raw in the beginning. But thankfully, he took the biggest, and most necessary leap with his technique between the 2017 and 2018 seasons.In my opinion, he has always known that his capabilities are above those around him, but it looked like he finally realized how to utilize his elite tools in his true junior season. His strong powerful hands are much more refined and are able to find his mark on the defender’s breastplate at a much higher rate. The power behind his palms is something to be seen, too. He looks like he salivates at the chance to down block interior linemen with the way he shoots off that line and into the ear hole of the pour soul.His combination of size and athleticism seems like a natural fit in the Chargers offense. His movement skills make him an easy fit in the multiple-run scheme that Lynn loves to use while giving the Chargers a looming presence with enough agility to handle some of the elite edge rushers that call the AFC West home.While looking around at a number of mock drafts, there is a real chance that Little finds himself available at the end of the first round. With Alabama’s Jonah Williams, Florida’s Jawaan Taylor, and Oklahoma’s Cody Ford gaining some steam at this point of the off-season, and the plethora of defensive linemen aiming to go early on day one, Little could easily fall to the Chargers as an afterthought to the rest of the league.