Last season, the lights were truly out on Chargers LB Shawne Merriman after he had surgery to repair his damaged knee and ended his 2008 campaign before it even began. Now he’s back and he wants to let you know that he’s ready to bring the noise once more in San Diego.

Kevin Acee (San Diego Union-Tribune) recently spoke with Merriman, who is returning to the practice field this weekend for the first time in a year, and got this statement from the Pro Bowl LB:

“This year is literally going to be about unleashing,” Merriman said. “Unleashing so much I’ve got pent up in me.”

“It’s going to be an interesting year,” he said. “I’m bringing all the ruckus. I’m going to do the ‘Lights Out’ dance so often people will be glad to see me go – like, ‘Get that dance out of here.’ ”

Merriman is well known for his antics after he sacks the quarterback, dancing around the backfield and shouting “lights out!” to the roar of his fans in San Diego. He’s also become the poster boy for the league’s fight to keep performance enhancing drugs out of the locker room, after he was suspended during the 2006 season for a positive test that he claims was a result of a tainted supplement.

All of that has combined to give the Chargers pause as to how they’ll be proceeding at the end of the year when Merriman becomes a free agent. He’s still young (he’ll be 25 in a few weeks) and obviously has the ability to dominate on defense, so San Diego’s front office will certainly have a dilemma on their hands when it comes to re-signing him to a new deal.

Do they take a chance and pay Merriman the big time free agent cash he’d likely get on the open market, or do they say goodbye to one of their most well-known players after just a few seasons of play? For now, the Chargers aren’t saying much, although the selection of fellow DE/LB Larry English in the first round of last weekend’s draft definitely raised a few eyebrows as to what is going on.

I suspect that San Diego will closely evaluating Merriman’s play (and antics) to determine the best course once the season is complete, but either way, the team is in a win-win situation as they get Merriman’s tremendous play for another season at an extremely affordable rate. They’ll also be able to see how well he reacts to the surgery on his knee and if he can play at full strength or not.

Regardless, Merriman is back to his old ways of intimidating his opponents, and that’s a highly valuable commodity for a Chargers team that intimidated no one last season en route to a backdoor appearance in the playoffs.

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