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The Chargers have hit on a handful of players in the first round over the years. But they’ve also found some gems beyond Round 1, including safety Eric Weddle.
NFL Media’s Eric Edholm went position by position and identified the best NFL draft values of the millennium, and sided with the highest-achieving lower selections.
Weddle, who was selected in the second round of the 2007 NFL draft (No. 37 overall), checked in at No. 3, behind Ed Reed and Troy Polamalu and ahead of Adrian Wilson and Kam Chancellor.
Weddle quickly became one of the league’s best center fielders, able to impact the game in coverage and as an open-field tackler, earning two first-team and three second-team All-Pro honors in a dominant five-season span (2010-14) in San Diego. He was a tough, smart and reliable player for nearly a decade with the Chargers, later adding three Pro Bowl invitations with the Ravens. Weddle also came out of retirement to help the Rams win Super Bowl LVI, in spite of being out of the game for nearly two full years before his return.
Edholm mentioned he was weighing Weddle against another early second-rounder, Budda Baker, who was taken one spot earlier 10 years later, in the 2017 NFL draft. While Baker has tallied more Pro Bowl invitations than Weddle, his overall body of work with the team that drafted him was just a bit stronger on the whole than what Baker has done in eight seasons for the Cardinals.
During his time with the Chargers, his best ability might’ve been his availability, playing in 137 games and starting 122 of them. A highly productive player in the blue and gold, Weddle amassed 847 tackles, 19 interceptions, and four defensive touchdowns en route to earning three Pro Bowl selections and two First-Team All-Pro selections.
After nine seasons with the Bolts, Weddle went on to spend three seasons with the Ravens (2016-18). The San Diego native then played with the Rams in two separate stints, with the first being in 2019 and the other being in 2021, in which he returned from retirement to play in the 2021 postseason, helping out in L.A.’s Super Bowl win.
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