Chargers do right to lend Gates a hand, challenge Watt

This is when it’s good to be bad.

NFL teams that finished near the bottom of the previous year’s standings generally have an abundance of glaring needs, and those teams are in a better position to fill them during late April. Day Two of the NFL draft, in fact, can provide as big of a roster rejuvenation as Day One when picking atop both the second and third round.

Presumably, at least.

Chargers Draft Picks

• First round: DE Joey Bosa
• Second round: TE Hunter Henry
• Third round: C Max Tuerk
• Fourth round: ILB Joshua Perry
• Fifth round: LB Jatavis Brown
• Sixth round: P Drew Kaser
• Sixth round: FB Derek Watt
• Seventh round: G Donavon Clark

After the Chargers exercised the 35th and 66th overall selections – the fourth and 36th picks of the 67 that were made Friday – we can argue about how much better the team got.

We can wonder whether Myles Jack would have been a risk worth taking. We can fret about the remaining need for a safety. Heck, we can second-guess all sorts of draft decisions right on through the fall.

But even with the high picks – three in the top 66 being the quickest execution of three selections in the four-draft tenure of General Manager Tom Telesco – there is a limit. You just can’t get everything you want.

The Chargers needed to add a tight end Friday. And for whatever else they passed up, they got the draft’s best one of those in Arkansas’ Hunter Henry.

“A position we needed to add someone, no doubt,” Telesco said. “To have someone on the other side of Antonio (Gates) was important.”

READ MORE: Chargers get nation’s top tight end in Henry

If you had only passing familiarity with the Chargers’ roster, you knew this was coming. Gates will be in the Hall of Fame one day, but he will be 36 in June. The Chargers’ tight end depth was a mix of inexperience and pure blocking dummies.

Henry was a fantastic pick.

Had he been gone, the Chargers would have taken Jack, the UCLA linebacker/safety of indisputable talent but a debatable long-term future due to a reportedly deteriorating knee.

Instead, the Chargers will see Jack in their Sept. 18 home opener, perhaps covering Henry. As soon as the Chargers turned in their pick of Henry, the Jacksonville Jaguars decided Jack was worth the risk at No. 36, stopping the fall of a player many deemed to be a top-five talent.

A couple hours later, the Chargers assessed the knee of USC center Max Tuerk to be healthy enough to make him their third-round pick. Tuerk tore his ACL in October, but the Chargers expect him to compete for (and probably win) the starting job.

He will be working to unseat Chris Watt, who largely due to injury has been unable to ascend the throne for so long occupied by Nick Hardwick. Watt was a third-round pick in 2014. It is another of Telesco’s third-round picks the Chargers believe Tuerk can emulate – receiver Keenan Allen, who fell in the 2013 draft because of a knee injury suffered in his final collegiate season.

“If (Tuerk) didn’t hurt his knee this year,” Telesco said, “he would have been long gone before we picked.”

That is probably true. So is this from coach Mike McCoy in answer to what he thought of the draft’s first two days: “It was exactly how we wanted it to go.”

READ MORE: Chargers expect Tuerk to compete for starting spot despite injury

Fans seemed to be finding that difficult to affirm.

As much disparity as there was in opinion about who the Chargers should have taken with Thursday’s third overall pick, Joey Bosa did not generate nearly the social media consternation that Henry did.

But it was the right pick.

This is not Ladarius Green, a fourth-round pick in 2012 and a poor man’s rendering of Gates. Henry can actually block, and he will get on the field.

Fact is, Gates is not Gates anymore. He’s enough of his old self to be a threat, but the over-under on how many games he plays in ’16 has to be no higher than 10. No one has chronicled and praised Gates’ toughness more than I, but he has accumulated a bunch of hard mileage on his lower body over 13 seasons. Trust me, he’ll welcome having Henry to soak up some snaps.

There are plenty of snaps for Henry to have, plenty of passes for him to grab.

Henry was named the nation’s top collegiate tight end in 2015, and caught 116 passes for 1,661 yards in three seasons. He can improve as a blocker, but the son of a former Arkansas offensive lineman was bred to do so.

Said Henry: “I grew up with that mentality – being tough, being down in the trenches.”

The Chargers didn’t need to take an offensive tackle high in this draft. They needed an all-around tight end and a center.

This was a good day.