How did new Chargers Eric Banks and Trey Marshall perform this preseason?

Banks was fairly productive during his two games in August.

On Wednesday, the Chargers were awarded two players on waivers following the NFL’s final round on cuts just one day earlier. Those players were former Rams defensive lineman Eric Banks and former Broncos safety Trey Marshall.

Banks played collegiately at the University of Texas-San Antonio and Marshall is a former college teammate of Derwin James at Florida State.

Both players have obvious connection to Brandon Staley. While not seeing the field last year, Banks spent the year within the Rams’ system and Marshall comes from Denver where he was coached by defensive coordinator Renaldo Hill.

The Chargers even got a little taste of what Banks can do when they began the preseason inside SoFi Stadium against the Rams. Banks recorded a sack and finished that game with three tackles. In the team’s second preseason game against the Raiders, he recorded another sack and two more total tackles. He would record zero stats in their preseason finale.

Overall, Banks is a long and lean lineman at 6’5 and 270 pounds. There’s definitely some tools to work with there that the Chargers didn’t have on their line before which makes me excited about his prospects going forward.

As for Marshall, his preseason was cut short soon after it began. During Denver’s opener against the Vikings, Marshall went down with an ankle injury after making just one tackle. That injury kept him from playing in both the second and third exhibitions last month.

Each of these players were claimed as potential contributors who were already somewhat familiar with the system being ran while also having quite a bit of familiarity with the coaching staff. Staley called Banks “our kind of defensive lineman” and that’s certainly a good sign that they feel good enough about him compared to others who have been with the team like Breiden Fehoko, Joe Gaziano, and Cortez Broughton who is now with the Chiefs.

As for Marshall, the fourth-year safety will help provide depth at one of the team’s most-shallow position groups. I personally like this add a ton as the group isn’t as diverse in terms of there being just as many rangy free safeties as their are strong, or “box”, safeties. Marshall has decent size at 6’0 and roughly 207 pounds. Without much action this preseason it’s tough to figure out exactly where he’d fit in best in the secondary but I guess that’s for Staley and Hill to know and for all of us to find out.