Ingram learns his way into higher class
There was the sack and forced fumble, and there was the tackle three yards behind the line.
It was one of his half-dozen times effectively harassing Seattle Seahawks quarterback Russell Wilson, though, in which the new-and-improved Melvin Ingram was perhaps most vividly on display.
On first down, Wilson feigned a handoff to Marshawn Lynch before pulling back the ball and looking downfield. Almost instantly, however, Wilson had to turn and run to get away from Ingram, and the QB eventually threw the ball out of bounds.
Watching the play again, you see Ingram break down and slow only slightly on the fake, ready for either possibility but clearly suspecting the pass as he quickly continues his stalking of Wilson.
“It’s just a little film study,” Ingram said. “That’s all.”
What it is, is the intersection of born-with-it and making-the-most-of-it.
“Melvin,” safety Eric Weddle said, “he has grown up over the past year from a guy who thinks he’s all cool to a guy who is actually trying to work hard and watching film. It’s showing.”
This past Sunday’s victory over the defending Super Bowl champions counts just one game. But Ingram’s role in the win added style points, which can have a lasting effect.
Now in his third season, though his second was just six games long, Ingram appears to be on the verge of becoming the consistent difference maker he’s long believed he could be. He has always been an imposing, impressive, almost implausible physical being. And he knows it. No one plays in the NFL 5½ months after ACL surgery without an abundance of physical gifts and confidence.
But this season could be the year Ingram takes a giant step, going from making the occasional play to continually forcing the action, because he’s actually working the right way toward taking that step.
Certainly, Ingram said he is “feeling a whole lot better,” almost 16 months post-op. But he knows is thinking a lot better too.
“It’s just me becoming more of a pro,” he said. It’s a term he used a lot when speaking about his start to this season.
Weddle isn’t the only veteran to talk about Ingram becoming a different player on the field because he’s improved his ethic off it. So the natural question to pose to Ingram was, Why now?
“The thing is, I’ve been trying to make that decision,” Ingram said. “It’s just all about God has got a plan, and the timing is always going to be right when you’re dealing with God.”
That being the case, then, consider Dwight Freeney to be Ingram’s Moses, laying down the law.
That Freeney has started out the season so strongly on the field – his eight quarterback hurries tied for the league lead – is just a portion of his contribution to the Chargers’ pass rush. Freeney, it turns out, has done a lot before ever getting on the field.
“He’s really pretty much taught me how to be a pro,” Ingram said of Freeney, who is in his second year with the Chargers and 13 years and 109 sacks into his NFL career. “How to go about everything, how to prepare the right way … how to watch film, how to do all that.
“Just being around people like Dwight and Antonio Gates and Phil (Rivers) and Weddle -- people of that nature give you a guideline how to be a pro. It’s about how you prepare. You always want to turn that corner, but when you get the proper guidance, people you can watch who do it, it makes it a whole lot easier.”
Now, without his exceptional speed and freakish flexibility and innate ability to combine both to get around the corner, knowledge would only take Ingram to a certain level. This place that Ingram is at, or appears headed, is only available to a few.
“What Melvin has, there are certain thing you can’t teach,” Freeney said. “I just try to talk to him here and there (about) what to see, what you should do in certain situations and let his natural abilities take over.”
That’s what happened Sunday, and it looks like it might from now on.
