Long before Chargers running back Austin Ekeler was an underpaid veteran who struggled against a system that doesn’t properly reward the best players at his position, Ekeler was an undrafted free agent trying to make the team.
Ekeler made it happen in the final game of the 2017 preseason.
Eagles coach Nick Sirianni, who worked for the Chargers at the time, mentioned Ekeler after Thursday night’s preseason game when explaining the challenge of trimming the roster from 90 to 53.
“The better the roster, the more tough decisions you are going to have to make,” Sirianni told reporters. “We are going to have a bunch of tough ones. The guys that are going to end up getting cut, they made it hard on us. We will evaluate this tape tonight. We still have some question marks of who it is going to be. I look forward to watching this tape, and hopefully some of these guys made it real hard for us.”
The final preseason game can indeed make a difference.
“I’ve been on teams that that last game, the player played himself into it,” Sirianni said. “Austin Ekeler comes to mind. Not sure he was going to make it beforehand and then had a big game at San Francisco back in [2017] — and made it.”
In that game from six years ago, Ekeler saved a roster spot by rushing eight times for 50 yards and catching three passes for 58 yards.
“I just remember the importance of that game, especially for the undrafted guys or people [who] may be on the bubble,” Ekeler said in 2020. “Just going into that game, just remembering, ‘Hey, I studied all my notes. I studied everything, I’m ready to play. Now, it’s just go out there and give 100 percent effort and leave it on the field.’”
That’s the message for the various guys who will be using this weekend’s games as their closing argument for a spot on the roster — or at worst a place on the practice squad.