Todd Gurley or Melvin Gordon? Which will be the Star Running Back of LA

By Djack

In a city where there is just some much to do, football is not a top priority like smaller market cities. With two teams now in LA, these organizations will be fighting to win over fans. The players will also be looking to fight over fans by outdoing what their counterparts across the street are doing to gain the love of the people in the city. Look at the Lakers and Clippers if you don't believe me, for 30 years no player on the Clippers was a true star in LA. Even now that they have Blake Griffin and Chris Paul they can't win over the LA market, and the only reason they're more relevant than ever is because the Lakers are in a very bad stretch of losing right now. That's why the Rams and Chargers are incentivized to win over the fans as early as possible. Once you got them they tend to stay.

The best way to win over fans is by winning and having the right superstar players that they can route for. Phillip Rivers is on his way out, he's got a few years left, but he's not going to be a selling point for the Chargers in LA. Jared Goff could be the superstar franchise QB the Rams need, although no one seems to think he's going to be anything special. That leaves two players on the offensive side the ball to sell to the fans, Melvin Gordon for the Chargers, and Todd Gurley for the Rams. These two young stud backs will be looking to help win over fans for their respective team. Actually it's more of a responsibility at this point. Which one will have the better career and be somewhat responsible for helping to win their franchise the fans of LA?

Todd Gurley broke onto the scene in 2014 having an outstanding rookie season. He seemed like he was going to be the next great thing in this league, and then last year happened. Rushing for 55 yards per game and 6 total TD's, pretty pathetic by any standards. Gordon was the exact opposite he was awful as a rookie and then last season he went off finally becoming the back we saw his as in college. He ran for nearly 1000 yards, had 12 total TD's, and he was a huge threat out of the backfield in the passing game. Normally, I'd select Gordon based off the way he's progressing, although Gurley's bad season runs deeper than just him not performing at a high level. Gurley needs a better line and some semblance of a passing game if they want to get the most out of his ability, which is a lot from what we saw his rookie season. As for Melvin Gordon he'll be solid in this league for a long time, I just feel his team is going to let him down. Rivers is on his way out and the offensive line isn't very good. The more concerning thing is the Chargers haven't been proactive towards winning in almost 5 years. Neither have the Rams really, but that's more of a Jeff Fisher problem in my opinion. I believe Gurley will have the better career and win over the majority of the fan base in LA. Gordon will give him a run for his money for sure though, so Gurley can't take another year off, there's some new competition in town.