Chargers' Kalen Ballage: Emerges as capable backup

Ballage carried the ball 13 times for 36 yards and a touchdown in the Chargers' Week 17 win over the Chiefs.

Ballage -- who finished the 2020 season with a combined 402 yards and three TDs with a pair of teams -- put together an uneventful three-game stint with the Jets before joining the Chargers midway through the campaign. From a statistical standpoint, the ensuing eight games were easily the busiest juncture of Ballage's three-year career to date, as the 25-year-old logged 108 touches in that span, mainly in the absence of Austin Ekeler (quad). While Ballage put together career-highs in rushing yards (290) and receiving yards (99), he was hardly efficient with his opportunities, finishing the season with a paltry 3.3 yards-per-carry average. It remains to be seen how the Chargers manage their carry distribution at running back moving forward with head coach Anthony Lynn now out of the picture. The offense had been almost dependent on a bruising back capable of running between the tackles as a fulcrum of sorts to work alongside Ekeler during Lynn's tenure, but a more imaginative coach could choose to make Ekeler the truly dominant option out of the backfield, thus forcing the backups to remain largely out of the picture. While Ballage's counting stats could make him a frontrunner for whatever the team's top backup RB job looks like in 2021, Justin Jackson, 2020 fourth-round pick Joshua Kelley and possibly others could contend for that role entering next season.