Glory days: Three former Gamecocks in high demand

There were no former South Carolina football players at the NFL Combine. That’s a stark sign of how far the Gamecocks program has fallen.

That doesn’t mean there aren’t plenty of USC products being talked about, and that’s a sign of how good things once were.

Former Gamecocks Melvin Ingram, Alshon Jeffery and Stephon Gilmore, cornerstones of USC’s three 11-win teams, are now among the best players in the NFL and are about to be among its highest paid. All three were set to enter free agency this season until the San Diego Chargers exercised their franchise tag on Ingram.

Ingram is only the seventh player the Charges have used their franchise tag on and the first since 2011. He has 18.5 sacks and 32 tackles-for-loss in the last two seasons in San Diego.

The Chargers used a “non-exclusive” tag on Ingram, meaning he still could sign with another team if San Diego fails to match the other’s team offer, but San Diego general manager Tom Telesco said his team is aggressively working on signing Ingram to a long-term deal before July 15.

“We know Melvin was a priority with us this offseason,” Telesco said. “Him as a player, the position he plays, what he’s done for us. Pass rushers are very important in this league. If we didn’t have Melvin Ingram, we’d have a pretty big hole as a pass rusher. It was important to get him back with us.”

A new long-term deal could make Ingram the highest-paid defensive end in the NFL for the foreseeable future. If the two sides don’t work out a deal, Ingram will be paid the average of the five highest-paid defensive ends in the league in 2017, a figure expected to be $17 million.

First-year Chargers head coach Anthony Lynn decided keeping Ingram was a priority almost immediately after taking the job.

“He’s a big piece of the puzzle,” Lynn said. “He’s an outstanding pass rusher, but he plays the run well. When you look at his impact on the game, his quarterback hits, hit pressures, he just did an outstanding job. I love the way he plays the game.”

Bears general manager Ryan Pace and head coach John Fox said they still have interest in signing Jeffery, but no one made it sound like the team’s top priority. A franchise tag on Jeffery would have cost the Bears around $15.8 million for the season, which is comparable to what he is expected to draw on the free agent market.

“When he’s been (on the field) I think it’s been positive. I think, really it’s just been that consistency of being out there,” Fox said. “I’d say he knows us better than anybody else he could potentially go to. I think it’s a positive feeling.”

Jeffery has averaged 61 catches, 910 yards and five touchdowns in five NFL season, but he has missed 11 games in the last two years, seven due to injury and four due to a suspension for testing positive for performance enhancing drugs. The Philadelphia Eagles, Tennessee Titans and San Francisco 49ers also have interest in signing Jeffery, ESPN’s Josina Anderson reported this week.

“When you can’t come to a common ground with a player and an agent, sometimes it’s necessary to kind of test the market to determine that player’s value, and that’s really where we’re at,” Pace told reporters in Indianapolis.

Gilmore, who is coming off his first Pro Bowl selection this season, is the top free agent cornerback on the market this year, according to Pro Football Focus. The Bills would have had to pay him approximately $15.1 million under a franchise tag this year and don’t sound eager to cough up that kind of money for Gilmore.

“Stephon is a good player and so, when you look at Stephon and what he brings to the table, the corner position is a critical position to being successful on defense, so we’ve got to put the right people in place to help us be successful,” first-year Bills head coach Sean McDermott said.

This story was originally published March 6, 2017 at 5:47 PM with the headline "Glory days: Three former Gamecocks in high demand."