los angeles chargers Their season resumes on Sunday when they face denver broncos At Empower Field at Mile High.
The bye in Week 5 provided much-needed relief for an injured roster. It provided Chargers coaches — from Jim Harbaugh to offensive coordinator Greg Roman to defensive coordinator Jesse Minter — time to assess their team at the quarter mark of this inaugural season.
“I never thought I would appreciate a bye week at the beginning of the season,” Roman said Thursday. “As it turns out, it’s a gift from the football gods.”
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What I’m seeing from the Los Angeles Chargers: Ladd McConkey emerging as WR1
As the Chargers come out of their bye at 2-2, let’s take stock of your questions.
you ask. I answer.
This is a mailbag.
Do you expect any trades before the deadline? – @kcaj_backwards
We’re now less than a month away from this season’s trade deadline on November 5th at 1pm PT.
I think the Chargers are more likely to make a trade at the deadline under this new arrangement than they were under previous general manager Tom Telesco. In 11 seasons, Telesco never traded a player at the deadline. They traded draft capital for a player only three times. New GM Joe Hortiz has been in his role for eight months. It has already acquired two players in exchange for draft capital – protection eliza molden and backup quarterback taylor heinicke,
Hortiz comes from a different philosophical perspective. His belief in continued roster churn makes a deadline trade a more realistic possibility.
How realistic? What would be the other options?
The Chargers as an organization have moved up their cash spending into 2022 and 2023. Cash and cap are two different things. The cap can be tampered with. Cash is the actual amount of money the team is spending, and each team is working on a different cash budget. According to Spotrac, in 2022, the Chargers were seventh in the league in salary cash spending. In 2023, he was ranked 16th in salary cash expenditure. This year they are at 27th place in salary cash expenditure. That’s by design. They paid above market value for their head coach. This season, the organization will not spend money the way they did in 2022 and 2023. There are business realities. And so base salary should be considered in any trade target – for cash and cap reasons.
Pick up The Athletic’s 2024 Fantasy Football Guide to read expert evaluation and everything you need to know to win your fantasy football league.
Pick up The Athletic’s 2024 fantasy football guide to read expert evaluations.
Additionally, with Hortiz, there will always be some motivation attached to compensatory selections. A free agent is counted in the comp pick formula only when he plays out his contract. The trade deadline provides an opportunity to target players in the final year of their contracts. For example, the Chargers could bring in a player on rental basis. Then if that player leaves in free agency after the 2024 season and signs a contract of significant value elsewhere, the Chargers could be in line for a comp pick depending on their other offseason moves.
So two criteria: cheap base salary and expiring contract. And, of course, the player has to fit some type of roster requirement.
cleveland browns RECEIVER Amari Cooper Checks all three boxes. Chargers need to be connected to your receiver room. The Browns restructured Cooper’s contract in July, moving the signing bonus to zero future years. According to Over the Cap, his base salary in 2024 is $1.21 million. The Chargers will only take a fraction of that for part of the season. And, after all, Cooper is in the final year of his deal and is expected to become a free agent in the spring.
Just one option. If you’re looking for trade candidates, I would start by using those three criteria.
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How Jesse Minter has led the Chargers to a defensive transformation during Week 4
How much is the lack of a true vertical movement threat hurting the offense and Herbert’s production at this point? – @lethalfooty
Chargers sign receiver dj chark In free agency to carve out a specific role in their offense. Chark has the size and speed to attack the field, and last season carolina panthersHe was at his best when attacking outside 50-50 balls. Chark injured his hip while trying to make a catch on the sideline in an August training camp practice. He was then placed on injured reserve before the start of the season. He has not played this season.
I think his presence has been sorely missed by the Chargers. They don’t have another player on the roster who can threaten the defense like Chark. As we have seen this season, quentin johnson He is a more dynamic player when he is running slants and crossers. He’s running those routes more this season than he did in his rookie year in 2023. Still, with Chark out, Johnston is the Chargers’ best option to attack from deep due to his size and speed. The Chargers have other speedy players in the room, such as darius davis And lad mcconkeyBut neither player has the size to consistently match on the outside.
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How the Chargers plan for Quentin Johnston to get the most out of the top 2023 pick
Rate-wise, Johnson is running fewer passes and posts than a rookie this season. Still, he leads the Chargers with 25 such passes through four weeks, according to TruMedia. No other receiver is in double figures.
So I think the benefit of Chark coming back is two-fold. First, Chark is better at attacking these routes than Johnston. Two, running these routes would allow Chark to make Johnston’s role even more tailored to his skill set than it is now.
DJ Chark has not played this season after suffering a hip injury during training camp. (Ronald Martinez/Getty Images)
Is Christian Fulton Earned a second contract? — @bolts10213
It is certainly too early to make any such announcement. But I will say this: Fulton is definitely playing well enough to put himself in that position if he can keep it up the entire season. Fulton has shown glimpses of this level of play several times in his career. The issue has been injuries. And so I think he’s going to have to stay healthy and keep up this production for a long time to earn another contract.
Nonetheless, the early returns are really positive for Fulton and the Chargers. He looks very comfortable in Jesse Minter’s scheme. I think Minter is putting Fulton in a lot of good positions to maximize his skill set – namely, allowing Fulton to play deep and use his instincts to break downhill. Fulton allowed a long touchdown xavier worth 4 losses in a week kansas city chiefsBut that was his only major mistake in coverage this season.
I’ll add a note here on the short selection aspect of this discussion. Fulton is on a one-year contract and will be included in the comp pick formula if he signs elsewhere after this season.
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What do you think of IOL conflicts? — @lu87346
The Chargers’ blocking hasn’t been good enough across the board the past two weeks. Part of that is injuries.
left tackle Rashawn Slater (PEC) was eliminated midway through the Week 3 loss pittsburgh steelers And missed the Chiefs’ loss. right tackle joe alt (Knee) Also missed loss to Chiefs. This led to considerable reconstruction of the entire line, including the interior. perfect keeper Trey Pipkins III Played left tackle in the second half against the Steelers. He played right tackle against the Chiefs. Jamari Salyer Played right guard against the Steelers and left tackle against the Chiefs. practice squad lineman Sam Mustipher Started at right guard against the Chiefs. Too many moving pieces, and a drop in talent.
Part of that is the Chargers faced some of the best interior defensive linemen in football over the last two weeks. chiefs’ chris jones According to Pro Football Focus, he leads all qualified interior defensive linemen in pass rush win percentage. The Steelers’ cameron hayward Is the third. chiefs’ tershawn wharton Is the fourth. The Steelers’ tangerine benton Is the 11th. throw in TJ Watt On the sidelines to Pittsburgh and George Karlaftis On the sidelines for Kansas City. Two excellent fronts against an offensive line that is missing two of its best players. Not a good recipe for success.
The two players who did not miss time or change positions in the last two games are centers bradley bozeman and left the guard zion johnsonI think both have done well at times as run blockers, although the running game has struggled overall the last two games. The Chargers signed Bozeman as a stop-gap option at center. He is a good run blocker and has limitations as a pass protector. That’s how he is as a player. That’s what the Chargers expected when they signed him. I think Bozeman played exactly how the Chargers expected.
Johnson has all the physical tools in the world. He was a first-round pick for a reason. It hasn’t quite come together for him in pass protection on a consistent basis. I think he may bend a little every now and then and this causes him to lose his balance. I also think at times he struggled to establish an identity on blitzes and stunts.
Both Slater and Ault are back in practice. Alt was a full participant on Thursday. Slater was limited. When those two players return, I think the inside game will improve. To me, Johnson, Bozeman and Pipkins provide enough for this group to remain above average as the Chargers get deeper into the season.
Thursday’s #LACvsDEN injury report pic.twitter.com/k5Lne3Pzej
– Los Angeles Chargers (@Chargers) 10 October 2024
How do you expect the offense to change in the coming weeks? -@brickcheese10
The Chargers’ offense has not been good in four games. I went into detail He is being said goodbye to at the beginning of this month. According to TruMedia, after Week 5, the Chargers ranked 31st in offensive success rate.
Adjustments need to be made. I would expect to see the Chargers bow out Justin HerbertThe right hand will get a little bigger in the coming weeks. Opposing defenses are devoting resources to the line of scrimmage. They know who Roman is as the play caller. They know who Harbaugh is as a head coach. As a result, defenses are loading the box to defend the run.
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Can Justin Herbert solve the Chargers’ offensive problems by making more throws?
According to TruMedia, in Herbert’s first four seasons in the league, he faced seven or more defenders in the box on 36.8 percent of his offensive snaps. This season this rate has increased to 48.8 percent.
More defenders in the box means less in deeper parts of the field. There should be opportunities for Herbert to create offense in the passing game if Roman gives him the opportunity. Security will also have to be maintained, but I think that will be possible once Slater and Alt come back.
“I love when Justin Herbert gets back out there and is able to throw the football,” Roman said this week. “We all do. It is a thing of beauty. But we’re trying to build something here that’s sustainable, that can win in many different situations. So I think we want that balance. But there are definitely going to be days when we can let Justin go to work throwing the football. Those days are coming.”
(Top photo of Amari Cooper: Ian Maule/Getty Images)
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