[
bleacherreport.com]
There is a resounding feeling across all of football that the rookie season of Joey Bosa isn't heading toward trouble. It isn't close to over. Actually, what three general managers said in interviews was that it is over. It's done. It's gone. The dumbass Chargers flushed it down the toilet.
If Joey Bosa ended his dispute tomorrow," said one NFC general manager, "he would barely get something from his rookie year. But it won't end tomorrow. It could be weeks. So effectively, the Chargers threw away the rookie year of their own high draft pick."
His rookie season is over," said another NFC general manager, "and he may not be a Charger."
When league executives say his season is over, they mean effectively over, because he'd report to the team so late that it's unlikely he'd be able to make any significant contributions.
The second NFC general manager said there's a 20 to 30 percent chance that Bosa refuses to play for the Chargers and then re-enters the draft next year (the Chargers would own his rights until draft day). Bosa could then be picked in the draft by any team but the Chargers. The trading deadline has passed.
A member of the Bosa camp told me that that possibility "is slim but growing every day." The problem Bosa has is that a worse team than the Chargers could draft him, though now that seems hard to imagine. Even the Browns are laughing at the Chargers.
This is where we are with Bosa. Because of the utter cheapness of the Chargers and their penny-pinching, irrational, self-defeating ways, Bosa has lost one season of his career.
There are rookies who prosper in the NFL. Jim Brown did. So did Earl Campbell. And Charles Woodson and Von Miller. Odell Beckham humiliated Pro Bowl veterans. It does happen, but it remains incredibly rare for a rookie to dominate. The chances are almost infinitesimal that a rookie could miss training camp and still contribute anything of significance. This isn't to say it has never happened, but it's as rare as the Chargers doing something smart.
This is the main point of the general managers interviewed. It's not a groundbreaking point, but it's important.
Joey Bosa has no chance to do anything this year. Not a damn thing beyond making some special teams tackles.
In speaking to people around the NFL, I've rarely seen such a unanimity on two fronts: 1) Bosa's rookie year is over, and 2) the Chargers are screwing this up.
I cannot stress this enough. Every team I speak to thinks the Chargers are ruining Bosa. They are laughing at the Chargers. Laughing at them.
"This is very Chargers," said one general manager.
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