The Chargers have signed 28-year old kicker Nick Novak.  Novak last played in the NFL in 2008 with the Kansas City Chiefs.  He has played in 22 games in his NFL career and he has connected on 19 of 30 (63.3%) field goal attempts and he has connected on all 32 of his extra point attempts good for 89 points.  Unless something happens to Nate Kaeding I see Novak getting cut sometime during the pre-season by the Chargers.

The Chargers have picked linebacker Donald Butler with the 79th overall pick (3rd round) of the NFL Draft.  Butler is a big guy at 6’1″, 244 pounds and he can play either outside or inside doing whatever the Chargers need him to.  Butler played in 12 games (all starts) for Washington last season and he finished up with 94 tackles, 15.5 tackles for a loss, he had 1 sack, broke up 2 passes and he intercepted 2 passes.  In his four years in college, Butler played in 43 games (27 starts) in which he made 239 tackles, 27 tackles for a loss, he had 3 sacks, broke up 5 passes and he had 2 interceptions.  This was a excellent pick for the Chargers as Butler can play either inside or outside and he will be a special teams ace from day #1.

UPDATE:  (8/31/2010) – The Chargers have placed Donald Butler on I.R. with a torn Achilles tendon.

The Chargers have traded 27-year old linebacker Tim Dobbins to the Dolphins as part of the deal to move up and select RB Ryan Mathews in the first round of the NFL Draft.  Dobbins played in 14 games for the Chargers last season making 55 tackles, he had 1 sack, 2 tackles for a loss, he forced 1 fumble, defensed 1 pass and he had 1 interception.  Dobbins played in 62 games in his four years with the Chargers and he made 151 tackles, defensed 6 passes, had 1 sack, forced 5 fumbles and he had 2 interceptions.  This will hurt the Chargers’ depth at linebacker but they felt they had to make this deal if they wanted a starting type RB.

The Chargers traded the Dolphins the #28 pick in the first round, a 2nd round pick, a 4th rounder and inside linebacker Tim Dobbins for the right to select RB Ryan Mathews out of Fresno State.  With C.J. Spiller off the board the Chargers had no choice but to trade up ahead of the Houston Texans to nab Mathews.  They paid a lot to move up and get Mathews so pressure will be on him to produce right away.  Mathews played in 12 games (11 starts) for Fresno State last season in which he carried the ball 276 times for 1,808 yards (6.6 ypc) with 19 TD runs and he also caught 11 passes for 122 yards (11.1 avg).   A concern with Mathews is that he missed games every year with injuries.  That could be due to his running style which is straight up quite a bit.  He played in 31 games (16 starts) in his three years at Fresno and he carried the ball 534 times for 3,280 yards (6.1 ypc) with 39 TD runs.  He also caught 19 passes for 268 yards (14.1 avg) with 2 TD grabs at Fresno.  Look for Mathews to split time with Darren Sproles in the backfield in 2010 before taking over as the main man in 2011.

The Chargers have lost a few players over the off-season and they have done little to replace them.  Hopefully GM A.J. Smith will make smart decisions to fill the holes that are all over the Chargers’ roster right now.  The Chargers have 3 of the first 91 picks in the NFL Draft and they have 7 overall picks this weekend.  The Chargers have needs at RB, NT, DE, OT, CB and S and with that in mind I look for them to consider players like RB Ryan Mathews, CB Perrish Cox, CB Patrick Robinson and S Taylor Mays in the first round of the draft.

PROJECTED FIRST ROUND PICK:  Ryan Mathews, RB, Fresno State

The Chargers have traded CB Antonio Cromarie, QB David Whitehurst and they let RB LaDainian Tomlinson leave as a free agent this off-season.  I did like the Whitehurst trade but other than that I don’t think the Chargers have done anything to improve the team.  The Chargers have signed CBs Nathan Vasher and Donald Strickland but they both appear to be nothing more than backups at this point in their careers.  The Chargers also claimed RB Marcus Mason off waivers from the Redskins but he is also nothing more than a backup.  The Chargers better be active next week in free agency as they won’t likely be able to fill all of the holes on the roster in this weekend’s NFL Draft.