Omarion Hampton Camp Update — August 31: The Backfield Cut to Three

The roster the Chargers announced Sunday kept three running backs — Omarion Hampton, Keaton Mitchell and Kimani Vidal — with Hampton the starter on the team's own depth chart, per Eric Smith at chargers.com. Getting there meant clearing the room behind him: Jaret Patterson was released and Amar Johnson waived, per the team's transaction release, and Greg Desrosiers Jr. was waived too — this after the undrafted rookie ran nine times for a hundred 18 yards with a 34-yard fourth-quarter touchdown in Thursday's finale, a strong outing that, in Gavino Borquez's words at Chargers Wire, "was not enough to secure a spot on the roster," and after Jim Harbaugh had said of him, per Smith, "He was great. We really like him." Nobody from the building explained it; the moves came by press release, with no cut-day availability.

The bigger Hampton story is the ground being rebuilt in front of him. 11 offensive linemen made the roster, sixth-round rookies Alex Harkey and Logan Taylor among them, per Borquez. Awosika is the starting left guard — the team's own roster page says he seemingly won the job in camp — and Slaughter is confirmed at center, per Smith, with Tyler Biadasz on season-ending injured reserve after the knee injury from the August eighteenth joint practice. And Rashawn Slater took his usual first-team left tackle spot at the final camp practice, per Smith. The August 20-third episode called left guard unsettled; it is settled now.

Hampton himself stayed off the stat sheet. The starters played two series apiece Thursday and ran four offensive plays total, per Smith, and the box score carries no Hampton line — the second straight game with no reported usage, which is what a four-play script produces, not a verdict. So the watch item we set — whether Hampton would get a real series — gets an honest no. The starters got their two series, and nothing in either one is reported about him.

Back in June we called Hampton the cleanest situation bet at the position — a vacated lead role, a coordinator who feeds backs, availability as the whole risk — and he backed the role half as a rookie, rushing for 545 yards and four scores in nine games, per our own numbers from last season. Cut day moved that read forward: the room is three deep, the line has names, and the risk is still just health. We'll check back as the opener against Arizona comes into focus.

_Data via nflverse._