Ryan Watkins joins the BFTB Staff!

The BFTB family have added a new member

Hey Everyone!

A month or so ago, Michael put out a tweet looking for part-time writing help and I think that is the fastest I have ever hit reply. I asked him to follow me back so I could introduce myself with the hope he’d at least read some of my work. We got talking and luckily he found my background interesting enough to give me the opportunity to be a part of the BFTB staff.

So I wanted to extend a proper Hello to you all and give the BFTB community a chance to get to know me before the season gets started properly. I thought the best way to do that was to tell you how I became a Chargers fan which was a bit of a journey considering I live in England and have never been anywhere near the American West coast. The answer lies in the man in the Lead Photo, Ladainian Tomlinson, he is the reason that I have been a bolts fan for 17 years and will be forever more.

The story of how I came across him starts in 2005, I was 13 years old, using the family computer on our dodgy dial-up broadband to scan through the early days of YouTube looking for videos of Rugby tackles to improve my own skills, when I came across a combination of Rugby and Football hits to the tune of ‘Here Comes the Boom’ by Nelly, it was my first insight into the sport and I was completely hooked from that first viewing. I immediately wanted to see more of this mad sport and quickly came across highlights of a running back making everyone miss; LT. His skills were captivating enough to get me to watch football wherever and however I could, this was not an easy feat in England back then but in early 2006 I was able to watch my first game; Super Bowl XL, and it was like nothing I had ever seen before, I can still remember Willie Parker’s 75 TD run to this day.

From this point on, it was my obsession to absorb as much of the sport as I could. I became a full time Chargers fan during the 2007 season, Nike’s unforgettable Quick is Deadly commerical featuring my favourite player LT, helped cement my love for the bolts in place. Then, with the grace of fortunate timing, the London games started and in 2008 I dragged my whole family to watch my Chargers face off with the Saints in a shoot out that is still the highest scoring game my country has ever hosted.

My passion within football is the NFL draft, it is the most unique aspect of the sport and one I think people who are born into American sport fandom maybe don’t realise how fascinating it can be to fans of sports without that kind of controlled recruitment process. My first exposure to it was as a casual observer watching Brady Quinn being taken by the Browns in 2007 and since then my appreciation for the college to professional transition has grown endlessly. My knowledge of prospect evaluation went up a notch when I started doing my own rankings in 2014 and then again in 2018 when I started a new all-consuming hobby of writing my own scouting reports. These got progressively more detailed to a point where I realised writing about football is something I’d love to do as a career.

Through some of my coaching connections I began to write analytical evaluation scripts for a YouTube channel called Thinking Football. It has been eye-opening and has given me key technical and analytical experience that I hope to bring to this new adventure on the BFTB team. This opportunity is my most exciting yet, to write about the team you have supported for half your life is an honour and I hope you all enjoy what the team and I have to offer this season and beyond.

I’m looking forward to getting started and for this exciting season to begin! Bolt up!

Ryan Watkins