{"id":65371,"date":"2025-05-20T16:57:13","date_gmt":"2025-05-20T16:57:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/65371\/"},"modified":"2025-05-20T16:57:13","modified_gmt":"2025-05-20T16:57:13","slug":"chargers-announce-decision-on-rookie-rb-omarion-hampton","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/65371\/","title":{"rendered":"Chargers Announce Decision on Rookie RB Omarion Hampton"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Los Angeles Chargers gained a new offensive weapon before the 2025 NFL season, selecting North Carolina standout running back Omarion Hampton with their No. 22 overall pick in the first round.<\/p>\n<p>Hampton led the ACC in rushing yards and rushing attempts in each of his last two seasons with the Tar Heels. Over the course of his three-year career in Chapel Hill, he recorded 3,565 rushing yards and 36 rushing touchdowns.<\/p>\n<p>Advertisement<\/p>\n<p>On Monday, Hampton and the Chargers made things official.<\/p>\n<p>Hampton signed a four-year, $17.77 million rookie contract with the organization \u2014 including a $9.56 million signing bonus. The 22-year-old ball carrier is now locked in and ready for his debut campaign with the Chargers franchise.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Official,&#8221; the Chargers wrote in their announcement on Monday.<\/p>\n<p>Chargers head coach Jim Harbaugh is clearly looking forward to utilizing Hampton this coming season.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;This is a player that can play on third down really well,&#8221; Harbaugh said after the draft. &#8220;Gives Justin somebody to throw to out of the backfield. He&#8217;s also a really good pass protector. His game is just really, really well-rounded. He&#8217;s a bigger back, 220 pounds, but can still run in the 4.4s and, like I said before, score the ball. Just so many things that he&#8217;s really good at, and we&#8217;re fired up to get him.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;This was something that was unanimous. You try to predict what&#8217;s going to happen with each pick, and ultimately, we&#8217;re picking what we feel is the best player available when it comes time to have our pick. And like Joe said, it&#8217;s not something that was ever split on Mr. Hampton. If he&#8217;s there at 22 that&#8217;s somebody that we&#8217;re fired up to get.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><img alt=\"North Carolina Tar Heels running back Omarion Hampton (28) runs for a touchdown in the third quarter at Kenan Memorial Stadium.\u00a9 Bob Donnan-Imagn Images\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"960\" height=\"640\" decoding=\"async\" data-nimg=\"1\" class=\"standard-img\" style=\"color:transparent\" src=\"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/03b35c05c200fbb40cce28278a015d62.jpeg\"\/><\/p>\n<p>North Carolina Tar Heels running back Omarion Hampton (28) runs for a touchdown in the third quarter at Kenan Memorial Stadium.\u00a9 Bob Donnan-Imagn Images<\/p>\n<p>The Chargers will begin their 2025 NFL campaign with a Week 1 matchup against the Kansas City Chiefs on Sep. 5.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Los Angeles Chargers gained a new offensive weapon before the 2025 NFL season, selecting North Carolina standout&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":65372,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2064],"tags":[241,7,1012,110,1014,262,2444,2443,6,941,288,6746,6493],"class_list":{"0":"post-65371","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-los-angeles-chargers","8":"tag-chargers","9":"tag-football","10":"tag-jim-harbaugh","11":"tag-kansas-city-chiefs","12":"tag-los-angeles","13":"tag-los-angeles-chargers","14":"tag-losangeles","15":"tag-losangeleschargers","16":"tag-nfl","17":"tag-north-carolina","18":"tag-omarion-hampton","19":"tag-rushing-yards","20":"tag-tar-heels"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/114541222008312556","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65371","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=65371"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65371\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/65372"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=65371"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=65371"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=65371"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}