It’s been a roller-coaster year for Los Angeles Chargers running back Melvin Gordon. Coming off his best season in yards per carry (5.1 in 2018), he went into a holdout in July and demanded to be paid on the level of Todd Gurley and Ezekiel Elliott. A few weeks into the regular season, his holdout ended and he returned to action in Week 5. However, he had not been up to his usual standard since he came back. And then on Sunday, he lost the game for the Chargers by fumbling the football on the goal line. This sent them to 2-5. Between that and his poor yards per carry through three games, it is time for the Chargers to bench Gordon.
Melvin Gordon Should Be Benched
Poor Play From Gordon
Melvin Gordon was active in Week 4, but only as an emergency option since he had just returned and hadn’t practiced much yet. Over the next two games, he didn’t really accomplish anything. In Week 5, he had 12 carries for 31 yards. Last Sunday on primetime, he had eight carries for 18 yards. Now to be fair, the Chargers fell behind really quickly in those games and thus were forced to rely more on the pass. I also suggested before that he may simply not be 100% quite yet after all the time he missed.
Then came this week’s game against the Tennessee Titans, where they did not fall behind by two scores until the fourth quarter. Thus, they did not have to rely on the pass. And yet somehow Gordon was even worse. He had 16 carries for 32 yards. That gives him 36 carries for 81 yards through three games. That’s 2.3 yards a carry. That is unacceptable.
And then there’s the fumble. Gordon failed twice in a row to get the ball into the end zone on the goal line with less than a minute left, and he also fumbled it. You cannot fumble the ball as a starting running back in that situation, especially when you’re wanting to get more money. Gordon is being paid to not fumble in a critical situation like that. And between that and the very poor yards per carry over three games, it seems clear that he should no longer be the starter.
Back to Ekeler And/Or Jackson
The seemingly obvious solution would be to go to Austin Ekeler instead. To be fair, he hasn’t done that well either over the last few weeks since he got relegated to being a backup again. Over the last three games, he’s gotten 28 yards on 13 carries. That wouldn’t seem to bode well for him. However, in the four games that he started, he averaged 3.9 yards a carry.
Now given that both Gordon and Ekeler have struggled the last three weeks, the question could be fairly raised as to whether it’s them or the offensive line. And the offensive line has definitely not been helping the Chargers offense out. However, that could be said for the entire year. Sure, they still had Mike Pouncey at center at the start of the year. However, the rest of the lineup was still shaky. Russell Okung’s absence wasn’t helping either. Anyway, Pouncey’s season-ending injury shouldn’t make the offensive line dramatically worse by itself if the rest of the line was already struggling to begin with. Some may also remember that Ekeler fumbled on a goal-line carry in Week 2 as well… but that wasn’t in the fourth quarter and that didn’t directly lead to the loss.
What worked pretty well during the first few weeks was giving both Ekeler and Justin Jackson carries. The argument could be made that Jackson should be the starter as before he got injured, he had gotten 142 yards on 18 carries – 7.9 yards a carry. Regardless, using both of those two seemed to work best. Though Jackson is still dealing with a calf strain, whenever he’s able to get back they should go back to that policy instead. Because Gordon is just not producing as the starter at all.
Last Word on Melvin Gordon
Benching a running back who had a few good seasons before now may seem a tad drastic. But between his holdout, his very poor yards per carry this year, and this critical goal-line fumble, there seems to be little incentive to keep playing him heavily. Especially when there are two very solid backups that have not had such atrocious seasons. Besides, it’s already been suggested that Gordon won’t be returning to the Chargers in free agency this off-season.
The Chargers are now 2-5. It doesn’t seem super likely at the moment that they’ll be returning to the playoffs, although they’ve come back from poor starts before under Philip Rivers. Still, this is the best choice either way. If they still want to keep making a playoff push, going with Ekeler and Jackson would seem to give them a better chance to succeed with the run game. And if that doesn’t happen, then it’s still better to see what else they’ve got so they can decide how to proceed with the position in the off-season. Regardless, fans have to be feeling pretty glad right now that the Chargers did not pay Gordon the big contract he wanted.
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