Sports

Chargers Offensive Line: How We Got Here

Now that the Chargers are 0-6 and just about officially out of the playoffs, I wanted to do a few deep dives on the roster. This post will explore at length the Chargers offensive line woes.

To be clear, the Chargers offensive line has been awful the last two seasons. The cause is a mixture of the Tom Telesco era, bad luck, and hopeful roster construction.

All of the data in this post was compiled by Claude from the Pro Football Archives, Over the Cap, and Spotrac. I reviewed the results for reasonableness but did not verify every data point for complete accuracy.

Offensive Line History

The following table shows the Chargers offensive lines since 2013, Tom Telesco's first year as the Chargers General Manager. The number in () shows the number of games the particular player started in that position during the year. The idea is to show the most common players in each position, not the most common line combination.

The offensive line has been a problem since the beginning of the Telesco era. Let's go position by position:

• Left Tackle Until Slater was drafted in 2021, the Chargers employed mostly fringe players. Okung was the exception, an expensive free agent signing who played well until he had health issues during the 2019 season. Starting with Tevi in 2020, the Chargers have primarily used drafted players at the position.
• Right Tackle Fluker was drafted high in the 1st round to anchor the position for years. That didn't pan out, prompting a mix of free agents, the Tevi years, and the Storm Norton experience (he was poor). Starting with Pipkins in 2022, the Chargers have primarily used drafted players at the position.
• Left Guard Lamp was drafted high in the 2nd round to anchor the position for years. He could never stay healthy and was poor the one year he did play. Troutman filled in for a year. Feeney was serviceable but walked after four years. Free agents filled the other years until the Chargers correctly put Johnson into the position in 2023.
• Right Guard Clary and Troutman were holdovers from the prior era. Fluker was moved to guard and then left the team after four seasons. Schofield was serviceable but the Chargers were always looking to find an upgrade. The Turner trade and Becton signing did not pan out.
• Center Twice efforts were made to sign top level free agents, Pouncey and Linsley. Both played extremely well, but had short tenures due to injuries. In 2026, the tradition continued when the Chargers signed a good free agent (Biadasz) who was promptly injured in training camp and has yet to play a down for the team. Not coincidentally, the Chargers best season in this era was anchored by Pouncey (2018), while Linsley was the starter for arguably Herbert's best season (2021). Hardwick is appropriately a Chargers legend but only started one full season in this era. The rest of the starters have been fillers who were well below replacement level.

Summary

The offensive lines in the Telesco era were chaotic. Poor drafting (both in quality and volume) led to a mix of filler and high-end free agent signings. The high-end free agents could not stay healthy for more than a season or two, leading to more turnover. The center position has been problematic since Hardwick's retirement over 10 years ago, while the right guard position has been a turnstile of mediocrity or poor play.

Offensive Line Draft Picks

The following tables lists those players drafted by the Chargers who started at least one game between 2013 to 2025.

Pre Telesco Picks

Notes:

• Hardwick and Clary were longtime OL stalwarts whose careers were winding down in 2013
• Troutman was a below replacement level multi-year starter

Telesco Picks

Notes:

• Watt, Lamp, Quessenberry, Jaimes, and McFadden never became reliable starters. Feeney, Tevi, Pipkins, and Salyer were replacement level multi-year starters.
• Fluker was drafted as a tackle but ultimately found modest success at guard. He continued to play guard after leaving the Chargers.
• Slater, when not injured, has been a Pro Bowl level left tackle.
• Johnson was a reliable starter for four seasons before departing in free agency.

Joe Hortiz Picks

• Alt, when not injured, has been an All-Pro level tackle
• Taylor is still in the "has potential" category

Thoughts

• Telesco's draft history is bleak. He averaged about one OL pick per season, picking up the pace in his more recent years. Only Fluker, Feeney, Tevi, Pipkins, Slater, and Johnson made the above tables for as many as three seasons, with only Slater and Johnson considered successes. No Telesco OL pick is currently playing for the Chargers; only Slater and Pipkins are on the roster (both on injured reserve). Telesco papered over his poor drafting with free agents who would tend to last at most a few seasons before becoming injured.
• Given the lack of investment, Hortiz should have drafted more OL players in the first two drafts. He did rectify this issue in the 2026 draft. I have more thoughts on the Hortiz years in the next section.

The Hortiz Years

2024 Season

Hortiz entered the 2024 season with the Pro Bowl Slater at left tackle, the average Johnson at guard, and the serviceable Pipkins at right tackle. Salyer was an effective backup, showing more promise at left tackle than right guard. If Hortiz had drafted purely for need, he would have selected a center and right guard in the 2024 draft. Because Telesco left him a threadbare roster, Hortiz decided instead to draft the best players available.

Hortiz was under severe salary cap restrictions. Ideally, he would have signed two centers and two guards to fill out the roster. Instead, he signed Bozeman and drafted Alt. Drafting Alt was absolutely the right move, as he has generally played at an All-Pro level when healthy. But the roster remained thin at the position due to salary cap constraints and needs at other positions.

Hortiz generally had an excellent 2024 draft, with Joe Alt, Ladd McConkey, Justin Eboigbe, Tarheeb Still, Cam Hart, and Kimani Vidal all starters or key contributors. Many might say that Hortiz should have selected an offensive lineman instead of Junior Colson with the 3rd round pick, but that is revisionist history. The Chargers needed to replace both of their 2023 starting linebackers (Eric Kendricks and Kenneth Murray). Daiyan Henley was a largely unused 3rd round draft choice in 2023, even though the team was 5-12. Colson was a key starter for the Jim Harbaugh / Jesse Minter led Michigan defense in 2023. Selecting Colson was a no-brainer that unfortunately did not pan out.

2025 Season

The infamous General Manager Michael Lombardi had a saying that always stuck with me: "Never confuse hope for a plan." Jack Reacher, the famous character in Lee Child books, had a similar saying: "Hope for the best, plan for the worst." The Chargers organization failed spectacularly in that regard in 2025. And I intentionally say organization, because it started with the Slater decision that clearly was above Hortiz's pay grade to make.

In 2025, the Chargers had a choice: sign Slater to a lucrative multi-year extension or trade him for a sizable return (likely at least two high draft picks). The plan should have been to trade Slater for a few reasons:

1. He had missed one of his first four seasons due to an injury
2. The Chargers drafted Alt and could easily move him to left tackle
3. The Chargers had Pipkins available to play right tackle
4. The draft picks could be used to replenish the needed offensive line depth
5. The Chargers realistically could not pay both Alt and Slater, so the Chargers would eventually have to trade one of them

Keeping Slater meant the Chargers, in theory, would have excellent tackle play for two to three seasons before they traded him for picks. Instead, Slater immediately suffered a major injury after signing the extension and missed the 2025 season. He is once again injured in 2026. The Chargers will now be lucky to trade him for a single decent draft pick. Signing Slater has been a sliding doors moment that the team simply could not afford to risk.

The organization declined the fifth year option for Johnson. The Chargers did not want to extend Johnson, as a long term contract for an average starter at inflated prices did not make sense. They also probably did not want to pay the fifth year option for Johnson knowing they needed the money for Slater. Signing Slater and letting Johnson walk after four years has been a disaster.

Signing Slater also reduced the money available to sign free agent offensive linemen. In 2025, the Chargers were 5th in cap dollars spent on OL and 4th on cash spending (thanks to the Slater extension). With the Alt extension expected soon, the Chargers do not have unlimited dollars to sign offensive line free agents, regardless of the approximately $100 million they had available in cap space at the beginning of the 2026 league year. At some point, long term roster planning must factor into short-term decision making: the Chargers simply didn't have the budget to spend significantly more money on the offensive line in 2025 or 2026.

In 2025, Hortiz scrambled to keep the offensive line afloat with a series of band-aid moves. The team somehow managed to win 11 games due to the heroic efforts of Justin Herbert, but it appears to have come at a cost to Herbert's career. Herbert in 2026 is starting to exhibit symptoms of other quarterbacks who were sacked and hit far too much, such as Tim Couch and David Carr.

Some will say the Chargers should have drafted more linemen in 2025, but it was generally a poor draft for offensive linemen after the first two rounds. That said, the Chargers appeared to panic when the Steelers picked Derrick Harmon one spot ahead of them in the 1st round. Instead of picking Omarion Hampton (running back) and Tre Harris (wide receiver) in the first two rounds, they could have selected Matthew Golden (wide receiver) and Tate Ratledge (offensive guard) or Donovan Jackson (offensive guard) and Harris. The positional value argument says that it's a bad idea to draft running backs in the 1st round, as they are "cherry on top" selections. For the rebuilding on the fly Chargers, Golden and Ratledge would have been the much more prudent selections even though Hampton and Harris have been fine.

2026 Season

To his credit, Hortiz did have a plan in 2026, signing or re-signing the following players: Tyler Biadasz, Trevor Penning, Kayode Awosika, Cole Strange, and Trey Pipkins. He drafted Alex Harkey, Logan Taylor, Jake Slaughter, and Travis Burke. Jacob Spomer is a promising undrafted free agent. The idea was to make sure there was an adequate volume of players to survive injuries and develop for the future while staying within budget.

Of course, somehow the injury luck has been worse in 2026 than 2025. Meanwhile, Trevor Penning (when healthy) and Cole Strange have played poorly. To be fair, the entire offense has been a disaster and Strange was really a Mike McDaniel signing.

That said, the line could have been: Alt, Johnson, Biadasz, Ratledge, and Burke. I am assuming that Johnson (unlike Awosika) would not have thrown a defender into Biadasz's knee during a joint practice. While not a perfect line, it's arguably the best line they would have had over the Telesco / Hortiz years. Particularly when considering the backups would be Awosika (guard), Spomer (center), Harkey (tackle), Pipkins (tackle), Logan Taylor (guard) and Branson Taylor (guard).

As for the draft, it did make sense for Hortiz to convert pick 55 into 3 picks (63, 131, 202). In that scenario, the Chargers could have selected Malachi Fields (to pair with Golden, McConkey, and Quentin Johnston at WR), Genesis Smith, and Logan Taylor. Hortiz then converted pick 86 into 3 picks (105, 145, 206), which could have been used on Burke, Nick Barrett, and Harkey. Pick 123 could have been used on another depth corner, like Malik Muhammad / Will Lee, something the team has been missing this season. And pick 204 could have been used on anything, though Lewis Bond, who was actually taken there, might have provided additional needed WR depth. In this scenario, the actual picks of Slaughter and Brenen Thompson would be swapped for Fields, the depth corner, and pick 204, with Burke taken at 105 instead of trading up.

Even with the actual scenario of Slater, [TBD], Biadasz, Strange, and Alt, along with Harris instead of Golden, the above picks would have been more sensible. Slaughter is a defensible pick, but a strange one given the signing of Biadasz and the overall roster needs. The other strange pick was Thompson, another McDaniel selection. Small, fast lower round receivers like Thompson rarely pan out in the NFL.

Conclusion

Better planning and not relying on hope would have left the Chargers roster and OL in a better position. Hortiz has not been terrible, as some folks are claiming, but the offensive line situation should be much better than it is. The small errors were not picking up the fifth year option for Johnson and not drafting a starting guard in 2025. The big error was extending Slater instead of trading him.

The team must properly assess the OL going into 2027. This includes:

• drafting one to two linemen each year in the middle rounds, with the idea of developing a few into full time starters
• occasionally drafting 1st or 2nd round linemen when the need becomes acute
• only using free agency for short-term bridge needs
• deciding which of the 2026 rookies can be useful starters
• trading Slater for whatever he can fetch to free up cash and cap space
• looking to replace one of the two guards with a seasoned veteran on a short-term deal; the team desperately needs someone like Quenton Nelson who can set the standard, much like Derwin James and Khalil Mack do for the defense; the offense in general needs more veteran leaders
• figuring out why so many offensive linemen keep getting injured and making changes to reduce the number of future injuries