In the modern NFL, you rarely hear about players who get significant playing time on both offense and defense, but Chargers fullback and defensive lineman Scott Matlock is an exception.
Through two games this season, Matlock has played 37 percent of the Chargers' offensive snaps and 22 percent of their defensive snaps, making him a regular contributor on both sides of the field like no other NFL player has been in years. (Matlock has also played 56 percent of the Chargers' special teams snaps.)
Matlock is the first player in five years to play at least two dozen snaps on both offense and defense in a season, and he’s done it in just two games already. The Ravens’ Patrick Ricard, who played 342 offensive snaps and 140 defensive snaps in 2019, is the closest the NFL has seen to a regular two-way player in recent years, but Matlock is in position to get significantly more snaps than Ricard on both sides of the ball — if Matlock continues at his current pace over a 17-game season, he’ll finish with 400 snaps on offense and 200 snaps on defense — something no NFL player has done since snap counts were publicly reported.
The only other player in the NFL who has played on both offense and defense this season is Chiefs linebacker Leo Chenal, who played two snaps on offense Sunday against the Bengals.
Chargers offensive coordinator Greg Roman said he's incredibly impressed with how quickly Matlock has adapted to playing offense after playing only defense as a rookie last season.
“Scott has a lot on his plate and it's amazing how he's handling it,” Roman said. “I can't speak enough about how diligently he's preparing and he's getting better every week. How impressive is that? He's in offensive meetings early this morning, in defensive meetings, in special teams meetings, again in the defensive meeting, again in the offensive drill. It's a huge testament to him.”
And it's a throwback to a different era in the NFL, when players rarely left the field. Those times will never come back, but Matlock is a reminder of what football used to be.
