Becton’s continued absence is worrisome, at best.
⚡ LATEST
Malik Muhammad | 2026 CB Draft Profile⚡Brandon Cisse | 2026 CB Draft Profile⚡Colton Hood | 2026 CB Draft Profile⚡D’Angelo Ponds | 2026 CB Draft Profile⚡Jermod McCoy | 2026 CB Draft Profile⚡2026 NFL Draft — Cornerback Rankings⚡Keionte Scott | 2026 CB Draft Profile⚡Davison Igbinosun | 2026 CB Draft Profile⚡Chris Johnson | 2026 CB Draft Profile⚡Keith Abney II | 2026 CB Draft Profile⚡Malik Muhammad | 2026 CB Draft Profile⚡Brandon Cisse | 2026 CB Draft Profile⚡Colton Hood | 2026 CB Draft Profile⚡D’Angelo Ponds | 2026 CB Draft Profile⚡Jermod McCoy | 2026 CB Draft Profile⚡2026 NFL Draft — Cornerback Rankings⚡Keionte Scott | 2026 CB Draft Profile⚡Davison Igbinosun | 2026 CB Draft Profile⚡Chris Johnson | 2026 CB Draft Profile⚡Keith Abney II | 2026 CB Draft Profile⚡
Latest Hortiz presser.
https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/7203566/2026/04/16/chargers-nfl-draft-joe-hortiz-quentin-johnston/?source=dailyemail&campaign=601983&userId=12566676&source=dailyemail
https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/6618226/2025/09/11/chargers-teair-tart-travis-kelce-ejection/?source=dailyemail&campaign=601983&userId=12566676&source=dailyemail
Today sure feels good.
How a playoff loss fueled Justin Herbert in season-opening win over Chiefs: ‘A different 10’ – The Athletic https://share.google/NFl5GpxadHFoIVxFf
I surprisingly feel better about the D interior line than the O.
Chargers’ rebuilt interior defensive line just might be the deepest spot on the roster – The Athletic https://share.google/dMxuqtCxBJccMDoPH
Interesting numbers on Keenan:
https://www.si.com/nfl/chargers/keenan-allen-chargers-contract-lower-than-reported-cap-space
I don’t totally trust what has been posted at OverTheCap yet, since it does not show a path to incentives that could have made his contract worth the $8.5M originally reported.
When Mike Williams signed, it was initially reported as a $6M deal off the top of my head, but it turned out to be $3M with $3M in incentives, again off the top of my head. This Allen deal is probably like that, but I’m not sure we know yet what all of the incentives might be.
https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/6563910/2025/08/19/chargers-mekhi-becton-return-week-1/?source=dailyemail&campaign=601983&userId=12566676&source=dailyemail
Apparently Becton is back at practice today. Fingers crossed.
Buck,
There’s a good chance last year was the outlier on Becton’s career from a health perspective. We are betting on the come that he can repeat it. That theory is already in doubt. I have zero faith we even get 14 games out of him, no less a full season. It’s amazing that with all the OL issues we saw last year and everyone glazing Hortiz over the depth of the team we are one more injury a way from starting a worse OL than we saw in Houston.
I don’t disagree at all. For Becton to be our “big splash” signing was very underwhelming for me.
I agree too. A 2 year, $20M contract in today’s dollars is comparable to to Pipkins’ extension, but a year shorter, and he hit the open market.
That’d hardly a vote of confidence from the rest of the league. It could have been a part of a stellar reconstruction of the line – but as the line splash it’s so disappointing.
Now the Bengals are reportedly hosting Risner, and I have no idea why we arent on the phones getting him here.
Maybe this is all the makings of little Johnny. Wasn’t Telesco’s first draft pick an OT and then he somehow eschewed the OL pretty much the rest of his tenure? It might not be as far fetched as it sounds. How else do you have a HC that calls OL weapons and then only adds one questionable piece to an underperforming unit?
I have to say, for as much as I like what Hortiz did with the roster last year, this second go round was very underwhelming. I also thinks it’s laughable seeing posts that we have the 4th or 5th most cap space next year. Who cares when you shop at Dollar Tree?
Telesco made 12 1st round picks, of which 3 (25%) were OL (T Fluker, T Slater, G Zion).
I believe he made 76 picks altogether, of which 14 (18%) were OL. Unfortunately, he didn’t really hit on any besides Slater. Here they are:
2013 1st – T Fluker2014 3rd – G Watt2016 3rd – C Tuerk2016 7th – G Clark2017 2nd – G Lamp2017 3rd – G Feeney2017 6th – T Tevi2018 5th – C Quessenberry2019 3rd – T Pipkins2021 1st – T Slater2021 5th – IOL Jaimes2022 1st – G Zion2022 6th – G/T Salyer2023 5th – G McFadden
Yeah. he built some horrific OL for Rivers.
Erick – how much of it would you attribute to us having poor OL coaching? It seems like when we have invested capital – they’ve largely been whiffs outside of Slater and Alt.
I remember New England had an OL coach that was there during the start of their dynasty, retired, and after a few years of subpar play/results Bill lured him out of retirement and he shared up the OL once again.
It would make sense to me if the T positions are less coach-dependent than guards and centers. I cant help but wonder how much that has impacted the growth path of guys like Zion, Fenney, Lamp, etc. It seems like we haven’t “hit” on a Day 2 or 3 offensive lineman in over a decade.
I’ve wondered about this ever since Hudson Houck days. He’s the best Chargers’ OL coach I can recall.
I don’t know man. When you are the GM and you build a team that has Trenton Scott and Sam Tevi as your opening day starters at OT, does coaching really matter? I mean TT had some years with mid to high picks and even trade ups in Rd1 and never chose OL with them. Some of the picks were good players but not OL. And there were good ones on the board.
Some of this is over the top and undermines the credibility of the argument you are trying to make. Easy example, suggesting he could/should have drafted C Ryan Kelly at #3 over Bosa is just silly.
I prefaced it as saying that he selected good players with some of the picks (Bosa, Herbert, Derwin) but he had no issues trading back into the first for a 2 down LB, he couldn’t have done that for Kelly?
Every single time he traded up in his entire Chargers career, it was a mistake: Teo, Attaochu, Gordon, Murray. I would never encourage Telesco to trade up.
I always felt that Telesco (and John Spanos) managed the team like a game of Madden. They stacked the top of the roster with high draft picks and expensive FAs. The depth was always shit.
The willingness to give away picks to add one more flashy “top of the roster” pick was emblematic of this very flawed philosophy. Superstars may occasionally win you a game with a heroic performance, but a strong bottom half of a roster wins championships.
Because Risner isn’t very good? What’s the point of spending money on a guy who hasn’t been in camp, hasn’t been in the system and is at best a marginal upgrade, yet more likely a waste of money?
The whole league is starved for OL talent. Buying expensive interior OL players has been a fools errand for the most part over the last 10 – 15 years. I fully support their decision not to overpay for expensive IOL players who often come in and don’t even fit.
The issue is that they haven’t drafted guys besides Alt. I actually really liked the Taylor pick and I think he would’ve gone a lot higher if not for the knee injury. BUT that said, he was always going to be a development project.
They need 1 – 2 “Top 100” picks on the OL. Their other biggest issue is they need the same thing on the DL/Edge.
The biggest surprise (to me) of the Hortiz regime is that 3 of their top 4 picks so far have been “weapons” while I was expecting them to beef up the lines more. Some of that is likely just the way the chips fell though.
Agree with this. Very surprising.
Dalton Risner has signed the last two seasons for right around $2.5M, and he has regularly been an average or slightly above average guard. After his first year in Minn, PFF projected he would get an $8M APY contract, but in the article I did for A to Z Sports with Josh, I predicted he’d only get $2.5M, and he signed right around there.
The reason being – veteran guards that are unspectacular and don’t stand out as significantly above-average run blockers often get overlooked in free agency. Despite Risner’s 2nd round draft pedigree, he was very “average” for the Bronco’s, and average doesn’t get you paid unless you really flash at a certain skill – enough for a team with a vision to overpay (See: Jonah Jackson, Rams 2024).
Despite that – fans were stoked to see Risner back with the Vikes in 2024 because he was a solid depth piece, and the price wasn’t too high. Veteran guards like Risner, or for yeoman guards we’ve signed in the past like Oday Aboushi and Michael Schofield, can be bargain-barrel depth pieces that prevent your line from completely collapsing like ours has at times with shotty depth pieces.
The injury to Slater – and Becton’s lengthy injury history, means absolutely should be targeting someone like Risner. At best, he pushes Zion for his spot. At worst, he provides critical depth for a room that felt deep in OTA’s, but with Slater’s injury and Becton’s uncertainty is starting to feel razor thin.
FWIW, and I know many don’t agree with me – I believe signing Dalton Risner and running with:
Alt – Zion – James (Bozeman) – Risner – Becton
would probably give us the most talented 5 lineman to run Roman’s scheme.