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@kevdiego That's quite surprising. He played better than Quarterman and Jean-Baptiste.
Last season, 72 players played at least one snap for the Chargers on offense, defense, and/or special teams. As of right now, the Chargers have:
- 30 players on their 53 man roster from that group (and I don't expect backup QB Stick to last)
- 2 of 5 players on IR from that group
- 2 of 17 players on the practice squad from that group and 2 others who were on the practice squad last year
That is just 36 of 75 current Chargers players who are holdovers from Telesco's final season with the Chargers. New regime normally leads to change, but that seems like more than normal. I'm interpreting that as confirmation of what Chargers fans have long thought about the poor depth in Telesco's rosters.
But it was always hard to know how to separate responsibility between Telesco and President of Football Operations John Spanos, the owner's son. If Telesco does a better job with the Raiders, that could imply Spanos had a big hand in those decisions. At least nowadays, it seems like Spanos is completely hands off and GM Hortiz is running the show.
Consider Telesco's last 5 drafts:
- 2019
- Only 2 of 7 picks remain: Pipkins (3rd) and Stick (5th)
- 5 of 7 picks are gone: Tillery (1st), Adderley (2nd), Tranquill (4th), Egbule (6th), Broughton (7th)
- 2020
- Only 2 of 6 picks remain: Herbert (1st) and Gilman (6th)
- 4 of 6 picks (really 6 of 8) are gone: Murray (1st, 2nd, 3rd), Kelley (4th), Reed (5th), Hill (7th)
- 2021
- 5 of 9 picks remain: Slater (1st), Samuel (2nd), Palmer (3rd), Jaimes (5th), Niemann (6th, counting him since he is designated to return from IR)
- 4 of 9 picks are gone: McKitty (3rd), Rumph (4th, IR not designated to return), Rountree (6th), and Webb (7th)
- 2022
- 5 of 8 picks remain: Zion (1st), Ogbonnia (5th), Salyer (6th), Taylor (6th), Leonard (7th)
- 3 of 8 picks are gone: Woods (3rd), Spiller (4th), Horvath (7th)
- 2023
- 6 of 7 picks remain: Johnston (1st), Tuli (2nd), Henley (3rd), Davis (4th), McFadden (5th), Matlock (6th)
- 1 of 7 picks is gone: Duggan (7th)
- Total
- 20 of 37 picks remain (really 20 of 39 due to the 3 picks used on Murray)
- These picks included just 7 clear full-time 2024 starters on offense/defense: QB Herbert, LT Slater, LG Zion, RG Pipkins, WR Palmer, CB Samuel, S Gilman
- Not counting Henley, since I am expecting Colson to overtake him at some point; I might be shortchanging him, so it could be 8 clear full-time 2024 starters
- It is possible that none of Pipkins, Palmer, and/or Samuel will make the 2025 roster, which could further reduce this to as few as 4 starters... though it is also possible Tuli starts in 2025
To me, that does not look like a good track record. I'm really happy with Hortiz so far.
@tau837 thanks for this breakdown. Just not a good GM. We will never really know how much John Spanos added to the disastrous drafting. Clearly the Chargers never had a chance to win the division in the 11-years Telesco was here.
@tau837 Great breakdown Tau. I like to look at GM decisions and judge them as good or bad. You can make bad decisions and have good outcomes. You can make good decisions and have bad outcomes. Over the course of time, the more good decisions you make, the better your overall outcome will be.
I think we both agree that there were far too many unforced errors during the Telesco regime. Most of these bad decisions led to bad outcomes. Most of us posting identified the bad decisions as they were being made. Using your data:
2019: 4 bad decisions, 2 good decisions
- Tillery: Bad decision, bad outcome
- Adderley, Tranquill: Good decisions, decent outcome
- Pipkins: Bad decision, decent outcome
- Stick, Egbule, Broughton: bad decisions, bad outcomes
2020: 4 bad decisions, 3 good decisions
- Herbert, Gilman: Good decisions, good outcome
- Trading multiple picks for Murray: Horrible decision, horrible outcome
- Kelley, Reid: Bad decisions, bad outcomes
- Hill: Good decision, bad outcome
2021: 4 bad decisions, 5 good decisions
- Slater, Samuel, Palmer, Jaimes, Niemann: Good decisions, good outcomes
- McKitty, Rumph, Roundtree, Webb: Bad decisions, bad outcomes
2022 (FWIW - I thought this was Telesco's best draft): 1 bad decision, 6 good decisions
- Johnson: Good decision, outcome TBD
- Trading 2nd for Mack: Good decision
- Woods in the 3rd: Bad decision, bad outcome (Telesco loves to waste 3rd round picks)
- Spiller, Horvath: Good decisions, bad outcomes
- Ogbonnia: Good decision, outcome TBD
- Salyer, Leonard: Good decision, good outcomes
2023: 4 bad decisions, 3 good decisions
- QJ: Bad decision, outcome TBD
- Tuli: Good decision, good outcome
- Duggan: Bad decision, bad outcome
- Henley, McFadden: Good decisions, outcome TBD
- Davis, Matlock: Bad decisions, outcomes TBD: Far too early to draft Davis & Matlock was forecasted to be a UDFA
That's 17 bad decisions, 19 good decisions. While I don't know which picks will work out in 2024, there was not one bad decision made by Hortiz in the latest draft. That's so much better than making a fucking stupid decision every-other pick.
@kevdiego Interesting that the formatting (bullets) is lost when you view these comments in the article rather than the forum.
Interesting exercise that you did. Consider the track record by round (my opinions on good vs. bad decisions):
- 1st round (5 picks): 3 good decisions (Herbert, Slater, Zion), 2 bad decisions (Tillery, Johnston)
- I addressed the Murray situation in the 2nd and 3rd rounds, where the traded picks were originally.
- 2nd round (5 picks): 4 good decisions (Mack trade, Tuli, Samuel, Adderley), 1 bad decision (Murray trade)
- 3rd round (6 picks): 1 good decision (Palmer), 5 bad decisions (Pipkins, Murray trade, McKitty, Woods, Henley)
- 4th round (5 picks): 2 good decisions (Tranquill, Spiller), 3 bad decisions (Rumph, Kelley, Davis)
- 5th round (5 picks): 3 good decisions (Jaimes, Ogbonnia, McFadden), 2 bad decisions (Stick, Reed)
- 6th round (7 picks): 4 good decisions (Gilman, Salyer, Niemann, Taylor), 3 bad decisions (Egbule, Rountree, Matlock)
- 7th round (6 picks): 2 good decisions (Leonard, Horvath), 4 bad decisions (Broughton, Hill, Webb, Duggan)
- Total (39 picks): 19 good decisions, 20 bad decisions
Looking at it this way, his track record was good in the 1st and 2nd rounds. But the rest is dismal: 12 good decisions vs. 17 bad decisions. And that is a big reason why the Chargers rosters under Telesco lacked quality depth.
Admittedly, some of my takes on bad decisions are probably influenced by outcomes, and it may not be totally fair to characterize late picks like Egbule, Broughton, Hill, and Webb as bad decisions.
Also, while I might be in a honeymoon phase with Hortiz, I generally liked his draft decisions.
- I only thought one pick (Still) was a reach. That said, if they had him high on their board and knew they also wanted Hart, they may have felt they had to take Still and Hart with those two picks. And they made great picks in the 6th and 7th, which may have been disrupted if they chose to let Still go until the 6th. Given how everything came together, I can't characterize Still as a bad decision.
- I would have traded down from 1.5, but I still like the Alt pick. I think there were multiple good decisions to be made there, and Hortiz made one of them.
- The only other thing I might question is trading up for McConkey rather than standing pat and drafting another position like JPJ... but I like McConkey, albeit as a long term WR2/WR3, not WR1. I think there were multiple good decisions to be made there, and Hortiz made one of them.
I agree with your rankings. I was trying to honestly represent how I felt about each draft pick at the time of the draft. I remember going on a (probably drunken) rant about the McKitty pick on the day of the draft.
I share your optimism about Hortiz. I didn't hate any of his picks/moves. I wanted a trade back as well, but when nobody offered value for the pick, he did the smart thing and picked what could potentially be a top-5 tackle. I didn't like the trade up either. But, as Kyle pointed out, he swapped picks, which gave him the same number of picks (vs. Telesco giving multiple picks for one player). Overall, I liked Hortiz's draft better than any of Telesco's. The only Charger draft I remember liking better was 2004, the year AJ picked Manning, turned that into Rivers, Merriman and Tim Dwight. Every decision Hortiz has made has been sound. I'm excited to see what the results look like on the field.
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