Bolts can honor Faison by dominating up front

A few more thoughts on Chargers Hall of Famer Earl Faison, who died Sunday at age 77.

1) Next to today’s NFL players, pros in the 1960s look puny.

2) Faison was an exception. Six-foot-5 and 270 pounds, he resembled today’s defensive ends. Top Chargers draftee Joey Bosa, for example. At the NFL Scouting Combine four months ago, Bosa was found to be 6-5 and 269 pounds.

Bosa lines up at left end.

3) Right end was Faison’s spot. Next to him was Ernie Ladd. Very tall for a tackle, Ladd was 6-9 and 315 pounds.

4) Tom Bass chuckled Monday at memory of the Faison-Ladd skyline. “It was quite a sight to see, to say the least,” said Bass, a Chargers assistant coach from 1964-66 who lives in Carlsbad.

5) Not just big men, Faison and Ladd were agile.

6) “It was funny,” Bass said, “because in that era, we had guys like Buck Buchanan, Ernie Ladd and Earl – all extremely big men for the position but as gifted as little, swifter guys that had normally played the position.”

7) Buchanan, like the others, was a star in the upstart American Football League. The Chiefs drafted him first overall in 1963 out of Grambling State. Two years earlier, the Chargers took Faison with the No. 7 pick. The Indiana alumnus was also drafted by the NFL Lions, who chose him in the fifth round.

8) In Faison’s third season, the Chargers went on to win the 1963 AFL Championship Game.

9) The ’63 Bolts had standouts at several spots. Halfback/returner Paul Lowe was one of them. Six-foot, 205 pounds and too fast for most of his pursuers, Lowe would have excelled in any era, said Jerry Magee, a Hall of Fame sportswriter who covered the ’63 Chargers for the San Diego Union.

10) Of course, the team’s most famous player was Lance Alworth. Deservedly. Veteran Hall of Fame voter Rick Gosselin of the Dallas Morning News considers Alworth the best wide receiver in the sport’s history.

11) San Diego’s defensive line took a back seat to none of its AFL peers, however.

12) Few champions in football lack dangerous players in the defensive front. The only time the Chiefs won a Super Bowl -- the fourth one -- Buchanan and his linemates overwhelmed the favored Vikings

13) Seven years earlier, the Chargers D-line boasted the original Fearsome Foursome. In the AFL title game, San Diego rolled over the Boston Patriots, 51-10, at Balboa Stadium.

14) The 2016 Bolts would do well to channel the likes of Faison and Ladd.