There are a lot of good athletes in the NFL.

These men were born more talented, stronger and quicker than you and me and virtually everyone we know or have ever known.

Melvin Ingram is one of those men.

He even bull rushes with the grace of a ballet dancer, powerful but smooth, that rarest of our species that glides through an arduous task at maximum output while seeming to exert minimal effort.


That has been apparent for some time, even before Ingram went off for nine sacks and 16 quarterback hits over the final nine games of 2015.

We saw it in spurts his rookie season. We saw it in his abbreviated second season and the first part of his truncated third season. And then there was the aforementioned fourth season, wherein he was consistent for as prolonged a period as we’d ever seen from him.

Yet here we are, with his fifth NFL season upcoming, with him appearing to be the impossible combination of bigger and more explosive during the Chargers offseason workouts, and we wonder what the former 18th overall pick will ultimately be.

This is a big season for the head coach, the general manager, maybe the defensive coordinator.


How big a season Ingram has will do a great deal to determine the fate of those three men.

In his contract year, is he going to stay healthy and keep ascending as he did last season, when he had at least one sack (and a total of 6.5) in each of the final five games? Or will he be a hard-charging, silky smooth non-factor, as he has been for the larger portion of his career?

Ingram deems the curiosity justified.

“I ain’t showed nothing,” he said Tuesday as he walked off the practice field at Chargers Park. “I have so much to show.”


Ingram speaks during interviews in short bursts – the same way he chases quarterback, only in this case he is the one evading. It took a question and two follow-ups to get the following about what he expects of himself for the 2016 season.

“It ain’t even started,” he said. “… You ain’t even seen what I got going on. … When the season starts, everyone is going to see. It’s fixing to get real.”

It took another couple queries to illicit Ingram’s reasoning.

“I’m more healthy,” he said.


Ingram tore his ACL in late May of 2013 and missed the first 12 games of that season. That he played in a game a little more than six months after surgery is a testament to both his work ethic and innately superior fitness. He is truly one of the more impressive specimens of athletic humanity you will ever see. But then, after starting strong in ’14, he missed an extened period in the middle of the season with a hip injury.

Last season brought healthy but early languishing. The latter seemed more disappointing in a way. It seemed a lack of impact – Ingram had 1.5 sacks against the Cleveland Browns and a total of four quarterback hits through seven games – could not be blamed on health.

But then November brought a burgeoning force.

Ingram credited sustained health then, too.


“I’m the same person,” he said Tuesday, similar to his refrain in December.

But then you bring up his son, 11-month-old Prince Melvin Ingram. There is an authenticity to his reply.

“It gives you a whole other perspective,” Ingram said. “It’s not about you anymore. You ain’t doing nothing for yourself.”

And so you have him when he tries to avert talk about the significance of this season.


“Every year is big for me,” he said. “Nothing different this year.”

He is reminded that it’s the second contract is the one that sets up a son and possibly a son’s son with financial security.

“Most definitely,” he said with a wide grin.

The Chargers and Ingram’s representative have not begun talking contract details. Given his history, the Chargers would be wise to wait, perhaps even until after another season. Ingram shouldn’t have a problem with that. He knows what he hasn’t done.


He is so gifted but not yet great. There is a difference, a gap larger than nine games against a few suspect offensive lines in a lost season that must be bridged.

As of now, there is reason for hope. Ingram is again flashing the ability, and he seemingly has the motivation.