Oh man, I love this question, so props to Chris for throwing a fun one in here.
For what it’s worth, I wouldn’t give any of these three things a super high chance of happening, but if I have to pick one then I’ll go with “C.”
First, Spiller is a talented back but rookies sometimes take awhile to get acclimated to the NFL. He has tremendous talent, and I could see him carving out a role in the passing game before he routinely gets 15-plus carries in a game.
Bandy is the man. The guy balled out in the preseason, and teammates and coaches rave about him. But as Staley said after the initial 53-man roster was released, it was simply a numbers game with him. If Bandy is the focal point, that likely means a bevy of unfortunate injuries for the Chargers on offense.
So that leaves Van Noy leading the team in sacks, which is what I’m going with. Van Noy has 26.5 sacks over his past five seasons, which comes out to a hair over 5.0 sacks per year.
Perhaps he doubles his career high of 6.5 and leads the team with 13 sacks or something. That could work by opposing offenses doubling both Mack and Bosa a lot, which would leave room for Van Noy to create pressure up the middle. Remember, even though he has experience at outside linebacker, he’s listed as a starter at inside linebacker on the unofficial depth chart.
Thanks again to Chris for a fun question. Send in more of those and I’ll try to get them in here.