It may seem like Los Angeles Chargers running back JK Dobbins has been around the league for a while, but at only 25 years old, it's possible that if the football Gods oblige, then the former Ohio State star is just getting started. Dobbins has averaged 5.8 yards per carry during his four NFL seasons, which would rank as the highest ever by a running back if Dobbins had reached the 750 carry threshold to be considered on the list. However, Dobbins has only 234 carries on his NFL odometer, thanks in large part to numerous injuries that have cost him 42 games over the last three seasons.
Dobbins missed the entire 2021 season while recovering from a torn ACL, came back for a portion of the 2022 season, and then suffered a torn achilles tendon in Baltimore's first game of the 2023 season. Dobbins took longer than expected to recover from his 2021 knee injury, but that hasn't been the case as he's worked to return from the achilles tear. Back in March, about seven months after suffering the injury, Dobbins was cleared for football activities shortly before he signed a one-year contract with the Chargers.
Now, with Chargers training camp underway, JK Dobbins is back on the practice field and he couldn't be feeling any better about where he's at with his recovery.
“This injury, I don't feel nothing. I actually feel faster,” Dobbins said after practice on Thursday, according to a tweet from Alex Insdorf of Bolt Breakdowns. Dobbins, who ran a 4.4-second forty-yard-dash while in high school, enters the 2024 season in a backfield timeshare with former Ravens teammate Gus Edwards and Kimani Vidal, a 6th-round pick out of Troy in the 2024 NFL Draft. And knowing what we do about the new coaching staff in LA, it's possible that Dobbins will get plenty of opportunities to prove that he's all the way back.
Should we expect to see a run-heavy approach in Los Angeles?
Under new head coach Jim Harbaugh and offensive coordinator Greg Roman, the Los Angeles Chargers figure to skew more run-heavy than they have over the past few seasons since Justin Herbert became the starting quarterback. Harbaugh's offenses have pounded the hell out of the football at every stop of his coaching career — remember, Michigan beat Penn State last season while attempting only 8 passes to 46 rushing attempts — and Greg Roman's many offensive coordinator stops have yielded similar results. In fact, in Roman's ten seasons as an NFL OC, his offenses have finished in the top three in both rushing attempts and rushing yards six separate times.
With all of the otherworldly talent that Justin Herbert possesses, I wouldn't expect that the Chargers will have single-digit pass attempts in any games this season unless later season matchups in Cleveland, Kansas City or New England are played in a blizzard. But with Jim Harbaugh's departure from Ann Arbor to Hollywood, Herbert's days throwing the ball over 39 times per game — the most attempts on a per game basis in NFL history — are likely long gone.
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