List your top ten chargers offensive linemen ALL TIME…

[Fouts2herbert]

adding both courtney hall and harry swayne to contenders list, swayne’s career got off to a rocky start but he eventually gave us 5 really solid years of LT play he was our starting LT on the superbowl team and as previously mentioned by Roo courtney started at center in that game too…

adding stan brock to honorable mention for his three solid years of service, he also started at RT for us in that superbowl…

[Fouts2herbert]

GxggEdU.jpg Harry swayne wins coolest face mask in charger history, LOL

[Fouts2herbert]

Next up to the contender list is jim lachey and the undersized overachieving but one of my personal favorites dennis mcknight will be added to honorable mention…CONAN!

[Boltnut]

I'm going to list them from era to era... starting with 1976 when I was first a fan:

G Doug Wilkerson.
G Ed White. Ed was a friend of the family. My dad used to play racketball with him. I went to school with Ed's kids.
C Don Macek.

C Courtney Hall
T Harry Swayne

C Nick Hardwick
G Mike Goff
T Shane Olivea
G Kris Dielman

C Corey Linsley

[Fouts2herbert]

I’m adding don macek and ed white to the contender list…

[powderblueboy]

I see a group of 5 who are no brainers

Mix
Sweeney
Washington
Wilkerson
Dielman

and a 2nd group somewhat behind:

Ed White
Courtney Hall
Nick Hardwick


and a 3rd group that is changeable

[Fouts2herbert]

I’ve traveled as far back as 1983 now so adding billy shields and doug wilkerson to the contender list…

[chargeroo]

Jim Lachey was certainly one of the best but we made a bad trade and lost him. I'm trying to remember the Center that left us for the Dolphins and had a HOF career. I ate lunch with him at a Chargers luncheon in his rookie year. Nice guy, but now I forgot his name. Another sign of how old I am.

I didn't put any "honorable mentions" on my list but you guys have mentioned a few that I liked - Dennis McKnight and Harry Swain were good. Billy Shields too. I wasn't a fan of Goff, too many penalties for my taste. Hardwick sometimes looked like he had on skates as he was pushed back into Rivers.

You know something - most of those guys from the 60's and 70's were too light to play today, but they sure could play back then. Every time we get another OL injured I wonder what Gilman and Coryell knew about OL that we don't know now. They had the same five guys line up week after week for 5/6 years. Maybe the 250 lb guys were simply in better shape than today's 300+ guys are ?

[jamrock]

Jim Lachey was certainly one of the best but we made a bad trade and lost him. I'm trying to remember the Center that left us for the Dolphins and had a HOF career. I ate lunch with him at a Chargers luncheon in his rookie year. Nice guy, but now I forgot his name. Another sign of how old I am.

I didn't put any "honorable mentions" on my list but you guys have mentioned a few that I liked - Dennis McKnight and Harry Swain were good. Billy Shields too. I wasn't a fan of Goff, too many penalties for my taste. Hardwick sometimes looked like he had on skates as he was pushed back into Rivers.

You know something - most of those guys from the 60's and 70's were too light to play today, but they sure could play back then. Every time we get another OL injured I wonder what Gilman and Coryell knew about OL that we don't know now. They had the same five guys line up week after week for 5/6 years. Maybe the 250 lb guys were simply in better shape than today's 300+ guys are ?

Roo, you raise an interesting issue that I used to wonder about because I don’t remember guys getting so many injuries when I was a kid. Not just OL but guys like Alworth and Garrsion or Ernie Ladd or even later Brooks, James, Chandler JJ, big hands, Louie, Dean. I know Winslow’s career was ended early and Leslie ONeal had a bad knee injury but back in the day I don’t remember key guys going down.

now that I’m thinking about it Paul Lowe and Dickie Post or Keith Lincoln might have had bad injuries.

part of me thinks that as guys got bigger, faster and stronger it was much harder on tendons and hamstrings and the collisions got worse.

or maybe I’m just old and do t remember

[powderblueboy]

Jim Lachey was certainly one of the best but we made a bad trade and lost him. I'm trying to remember the Center that left us for the Dolphins and had a HOF career. I ate lunch with him at a Chargers luncheon in his rookie year. Nice guy, but now I forgot his name. Another sign of how old I am.

I didn't put any "honorable mentions" on my list but you guys have mentioned a few that I liked - Dennis McKnight and Harry Swain were good. Billy Shields too. I wasn't a fan of Goff, too many penalties for my taste. Hardwick sometimes looked like he had on skates as he was pushed back into Rivers.

You know something - most of those guys from the 60's and 70's were too light to play today, but they sure could play back then. Every time we get another OL injured I wonder what Gilman and Coryell knew about OL that we don't know now. They had the same five guys line up week after week for 5/6 years. Maybe the 250 lb guys were simply in better shape than today's 300+ guys are ?

Larry Little was a Charger, no?

He went on to have a HOF career with Miami as a guard.

Miami's center on those Super Bowl teams was also very good, but I can't remember his name.

Was it Jim Langer?

[wu-dai clan]

Great stuff, friends.
This always gets me going on Toniu Fonoti, and what might have been.

Velo, on your list of all time scrubs, I actually kinda liked Clary.
Everyone else there qualifies lol.

[Fouts2herbert]

Jim Lachey was certainly one of the best but we made a bad trade and lost him. I'm trying to remember the Center that left us for the Dolphins and had a HOF career. I ate lunch with him at a Chargers luncheon in his rookie year. Nice guy, but now I forgot his name. Another sign of how old I am.

I didn't put any "honorable mentions" on my list but you guys have mentioned a few that I liked - Dennis McKnight and Harry Swain were good. Billy Shields too. I wasn't a fan of Goff, too many penalties for my taste. Hardwick sometimes looked like he had on skates as he was pushed back into Rivers.

You know something - most of those guys from the 60's and 70's were too light to play today, but they sure could play back then. Every time we get another OL injured I wonder what Gilman and Coryell knew about OL that we don't know now. They had the same five guys line up week after week for 5/6 years. Maybe the 250 lb guys were simply in better shape than today's 300+ guys are ?

I’ve thought about this a lot over the years…I read a quote from a coach once in the early 1990s, I can’t remember who it was, he said “it used to be the rare guy that weighed 300 pounds because he was just a naturally big heavy guy, now every team has 10-15 guys that weigh 300 plus pounds” this after they started bulking everybody up in the mid to late 1980s and it’s only gotten worse…

it only makes sense that if players used to weight 30-40 pounds less on average, the force of the collisions was lower, and people still got hurt a lot careers got cut short, if anything the advancements in medicine have prolonged most careers but if guys were playing at “natural” weights today like they did then? And combined with the modern medicine and surgeries of today, I think players might last even longer…IDK, it’s just a theory…