In his debut with the Chargers, running back J.K Dobbins had a big day. He thinks he can show up even bigger.
“I think I can be way better, you know?” Dobbins told reporters Friday, via NFL.com. “We’ll see. If I get those long runs again, I’m going to take it to the crib.”
Last week, Dobbins had 135 yards on only 10 carries, an uncanny average of 13.5 yards per attempt.
He had 107 of those yards on only two runs — one for 61 and one for 46. He added a 12-yard touchdown in the win over the Raiders.
Dobbins has always been incredibly good when healthy. His career rushing average is 6.1 yards per carry. But it was a knee injury in 2021 and a torn Achilles tendon in 2023 that derailed his career.
As a rookie in 2020 with the Ravens, Dobbins had 134 carries for 805 yards, an average of 6.0 yards per carry exactly.
If he can keep going, the Chargers under first-year coach Jim Harbaugh could be pretty darn good.
“We got a lot of room to improve,” Dobbins said. “We didn’t start out good -- had some bonehead mistakes, had some penalties, some false starts -- we just got to focus up. Great teams, they don’t get it until they get it. You see it, and it’s like, ‘Oh, wow, that teams look scary.’ But you can see we have that. We have the tools, we have the talent. We just have to put it all together, and once we put it all together, it’s going to be good to see.”
They should get to 2-0 on Sunday in Carolina, because the Panthers are, frankly, not good. They next face the Steelers and Chiefs before an early Week 5 bye.