Good morning Stormcloud! Thank you for bearing with me whilst I had a week’s break on a Greek beach. I inevitably spent too much of my time thinking about football and one train of thought I found myself on was what to write this off-season. I have a few topics in mind however what I’d love is to hear your ideas for the types of articles you’d like to see us put out. Therefore if you have any requests or ideas please let us know in the comments. It’s the deep part of the off-season lull so there really is no topic that’s out of bounds!

As with the other position evaluation pieces this evaluation will include analysis of the following groups:

• Returning players who signed a new deal with the team
• External free agents who signed before the May 1st compensation pick exemption deadline
• Players who were added in any of the seven rounds of the 2025 NFL Draft
• Undrafted free agents (UDFA) who signed deals with the team after the draft
• Unsigned players who are listed as camp invites in media reports

Note: If a player has an asterisk after their name (*) this means that they were added during the 2024 season and have been retained

This is the last group on the offense before we move onto the other side of the ball. The interior of the offensive line needed a whole host of turnover with plenty to talk about, let’s dive in!

Outgoing players

• Brenden Jaimes
• Jordan McFadden
• Willis Patrick
• Brent Laing
• Bucky Williams

The new look IOL room

• Incumbent (3): Trey Pipkins, Zion Johnson, Jamaree Salyer
• Returning (2): Karsen Barnhart, Bradley Bozeman
• Free Agents (2): Mekhi Becton, Andre James
• Draft (1): Branson Taylor
• UDFA (2): Nash Jones, Josh Kaltenberger
• Camp Invites (2): C Ethan Miner, Mississippi State, G Isaac Bunyan, Maryland

Returning

Bradley Bozeman is the only major name of note here as Karsen Barnhart will be battling for a roster spot after failing to earn practice reps despite the poor performances of the interior last season.  There is no getting away from the fact that Bozeman was the root cause of a lot of the Chargers’ protection issues last season and he didn’t exactly create gaps in the ground game therefore I’m of the opinion that the team are trying to move on from relying on him finding form. I heard Matt Money Smith telling fans to follow the cap allocation to determine who is the starter but that logic is short sighted. I see his 2 year $6.5m contract as more like a 1 year $3.75m deal which, whilst is significant enough that he could start, does not stop the Chargers from benching and stashing him especially as a good deal of that money is performance bonuses based on starting percentages. Jim Harbaugh’s comments on him being the “starter and captain” tell us that his locker room impact has played a part in the decision to keep him around yet the other moves around bringing him back on a multi year deal tell us that the staff are very interested in finding better solutions. More on this later.

Free Agents

The Jewell of the Chargers’ 2025 free agency period was undoubtedly Mekhi Becton, the guard, who left the Philadelphia Eagles after a single year under Jeff Stoutland having earned himself a super bowl ring. After being selected by the New York Jets as a highly rated tackle coming out of Louisville he found himself short of the standard expected of him and the New York media swallowed him up and spat him out to the south where the eventual super bowl champions took a chance on his immense athletic talents.

Mekhi grabbed the opportunity with both hands as he found himself a home at right guard, he used his immense size and power to drive gaps open and adapted his agility to be more suited to his new role. His pass protection has been an underrated asset since his switch and I’m sure this was one of many reasons the Bolts made him their number one free agency target. His arrival signals a change in how the Chargers’ timeline has moved up as Becton has turned a desperate weakness into a strength. The pairing Becton alongside Joe Alt should give the Bolts’ 2026 opponents night terrors and the Chargers did not stop the improvements here.

Andre James, the former Las Vegas Raider, was added during the second wave of free agency on a short term deal that didn’t exactly break the bank. His contract points towards him being in direct competition with both Bradley Bozeman and Zion Johnson for the starting center role. It seems that instead of chasing a need into the draft, Jim Harbaugh and the front office opted for a free market approach to deciding who should be snapping balls to Justin Herbert.

Some prominent analysts have said that even before his injury, James was on the way out of Las Vegas having shouldered the blame for their failings on the inside. Whilst I think this is a harsh review of his pass blocking skills I can see why their fans came to that conclusion as he struggled to drive out gaps in the run game last season. To be the outright winner of the impending camp battle James will have to find improvement in this area however that’s not why the Chargers were fishing for improvements. This line desperately needs to be able to identify stunts, call protections and lead the unit and James has shown the ability to do just that over his 3962 snaps in the league. That kind of experience is something that he offered that no draft pick could have done which is why he was the candidate to take over the spot should Zion or Bozeman not prove their worth.

Draft

Branson Taylor was a left tackle at Pittsburgh but his shorter arms (23rd percentile) means he was always going to be a candidate to kick inside to Guard. His tape is largely solid with very little obvious losses in pass protection however his tape also lacks run game prowess as he struggled to clear guys out of gaps. Taylor was always going to be a Day 3 candidate after missing half of the season with a torn meniscus especially considering he’s switching to a position he’s never played before. However there’s reason to believe he will make the switch successfully as he is an above average athlete with really movement skills despite being a bigger guard at 6′ 6″ and 320 lbs. In fact when you change his RAS score to filter as a Guard he goes from above average to borderline elite.

His path to starting is complicated due to the ever changing picture in front of him but he can take advantage of this by getting his head down and grinding without the pressure of being needed too soon. From the articles I have read about Branson he’s not adverse to this kind of competition and would welcome it. I think he has a decent shot at making the roster, especially after the team released Bucky Williams before mini-camp even got started which tells me the staff are liking what they see from the 6th round draft pick already.

UDFA

Nash Jones is another member of the 2025 class that has gone through a long journey to wind up in Los Angeles. His path started as an unranked high school recruit before landing in Incarnate Ward as a left Tackle before looking for a higher level of competition via the transfer portal. Even though he was an unranked portal prospect Texas State took a chance on him as a Left Guard and despite losing time to injury in his penultimate season, he recovered to be named in the Honorable Mention Sun Belt team before declaring for the draft. Nash is an explosive athlete when it comes to firing off blocks and benching guys off of his chest as shown by his 29 reps on the bench and his 96th percentile broad jump. This gives him the skillset to be able to compete for a backup guard spot as his testing numbers were far better than Jamaree Salyer coming out of Georgia.

Texas State Bobcats offensive guard Nash Jones is a dense, well-built blocker with strong grip strength and sufficient athleticism to play in a variety of run schemes. Jones, a former offensive tackle at Incarnate Word, is a developmental guard at the NFL level upon entry to the league.

From: The 33rd Team

Josh Kaltenberger is an athletic unicorn that is somehow both the biggest Center you’ll come across at 6′ 6″ and the fastest you’ll see with incredible short area quickness and explosive movement skills. However these natural skills do not translate to good tape as often as he would have needed to be drafted. Josh slips off blocks too easily and doesn’t look in control of the contact battle in either run or pass. He does identify stunts and help with protection calls so that’s a positive that means he has the mental as well as the physical potential but you can see why he fell out of the back of Day 3 as right now, even after playing for four years at two prominent schools in Purdue and Maryland. Kaltenberger is therefore a bet on honing his athleticism with some professional level coaching with a view of becoming a contributing player over the next few seasons.

There are a lot of bodies in between these two UDFA pickups and a roster spot so I think it’s unlikely that they will make the regular season squad and I see these more like bodies to rest important players during the preseason games whilst still getting workable play to properly evaluate the offense as a whole. The pair have incredible athletic skills to offer and it’s clear to see why the team wants to test out what they can bring to the table. For me Kaltenberger will be almost a guaranteed practice squad player unless he is completely unplayable because he can grow into something special if he is given the time and shows he can convert his talent into technical play.

Reasons for change

Let’s start with the obvious; the interior offensive line was the number one reason the Chargers didn’t win a playoff game last season. There’s not a single person on planet earth who wants to see the combination of Pipkins, Bozeman and Johnson in the center of the end zone angle with Justin Herbert behind them fearing for his life. Yet as the off-season program starts, two of the major contributors to the Swiss cheese interior protection issues are seen by many fans as the surefire starters based on cash allocation and some photos from the first days of off-season activities. Mini-camp line ups are almost useless at predicting actual starting roles so I’m not going to put a lot of stock in who is snapping to Herbert before Summer has even started.

Harbaugh, Roman and Devlin are surely too experienced to want to see two of the players who were the Achilles heel of the entire offense, maintain their roles after such stark and embarrassing individual failures when it came to the important moments. That kind of blind faith that things will turn around is something I would have expected of previous regimes but in Joe Hortiz’s pragmatic front office I see a staff that is always pushing for improvement. I am therefore of the opinion that change is coming, the question is now going to be about how extensive that will be and when we will see it happen.

With high character guys like Bozeman it’s usually a case of the coaches giving him every chance they can to prove their faith in him, until it is obvious that they can’t continue down that path without losing the trust of their players. However with the other spot I still think something needs to settle into place and, with Zion being in contention for another position, it does mean that he could be replaced as another player is going to be given the opportunity to win that Left Guard spot whilst he takes his snaps elsewhere.

Position Reset Evaluation

Joe Hortiz’s primary job this off-season was to give Mike Devlin a chance to keep his job by providing him with the tools to make decisions for himself. When the interior offensive line started to fall apart after the early bye week I can only imagine how Devlin felt when he looked at his alternative options and they started at end with Brenden Jaimes and Jamaree Salyer, two players who didn’t touch the field until it was absolutely impossible not to let them try their luck. That is not the case now, there are multiple answers at every spot along the offensive line. This is a largely injury proof group that has flexibility in depth with at least three players who can play in each spot which is something a lot of teams would be jealous of. That said, there are only three spots where anyone could be comfortable with saying those players would start on teams with super bowl aspirations. For me, whilst the depth is there I don’t think this is the final group. The front office has done a good job at laying the foundations but they have left over cap space for a reason and that’s to give them the ammunition to acquire players should they reach the point they see it as necessary to do so.

One consideration to keep in mind is that Guards are actually one of the most frequently traded assets in the league. Over the last two years nine starting quality Guards have been traded, all for Day 3 picks or out of favor defensive players. Therefore I wouldn’t rule out that the Chargers are done adding to this position via guys who become available as roster cut downs are looming. This becomes a more prominent conversation if they do see Zion winning the Center position battle as that leaves them with no options with experience at the Left Guard position despite having five options to fill the role.

My early and bold prediction is that Zion is the odd man out who ends up being sent out in a trade. Now I am not fully sold on this because as an organization the Chargers have been late to trade players but the fact they declined his 5th year option tells me that if a trade was to happen it would have to be triggered this off-season to give his new team a full season under contract to assess his fit before he hits free agency. I’ve slowly learnt that almost everything Harbaugh says about his players at the podium is to give them a value boost both in terms of the outside market and within themselves in terms of self-belief. His recent comments about Zion being the starter at one position or another strike me as a life raft sent to keep his stock afloat. It seemed too much of a leap to declare someone the unimpeachable starter before camp had even started when that same player would have been benched last season if they had any kind of viable alternative. Zion’s value is the highest of any of the players without a secure role, that ever present ‘former first round pick’ boost plus his consistent availability should put him onto teams’ radars then add in the fact that Duke Manyweather will boost his profile even further and you can see why I see this as a feasible move. I’d like to see Hortiz take advantage of those coaches who think they can fix him instead of trying to go with that route themselves.

The Chargers won’t be ready to part with Quentin Johnston just yet, although the former first-rounder might be on thin ice going into Year 3. That leaves Johnson as a different marquee player who might be close to an exit. Los Angeles signed guard Mekhi Becton and center Andre James in free agency, while Bradley Bozeman and Trey Pipkins are each back in the fold. Johnson’s 62.5 PFF overall grade leads Chargers guards since 2023, but his fifth-year option will probably get declined — and a trade may ensue.

From PFF

In terms of other options Kyle has talked about Trey Pipkins being a trade candidate for a long time now and he does seem like the most likely option should he miss out on a starting role as he still has some value as a guy with starting experience at three positions. This trade would almost certainly be for a future day 3 pick because his contract is undesirable and Joe Hortiz is short of draft capital after the outgoings free agents fell short of offsetting the Bolts’ spring spending in terms of balancing out the comp pick formula. Outside of a trade we could see Hortiz look at acquiring someone after the final roster cut downs. I’m not convinced he’d be willing to gamble on finding improvement that late in the off-season as it would mean all other options have been exhausted which would put the staff in a position of desperation, something that goes against their persona.

All things considered the Chargers have improved one position and given themselves options for the other two roles plus a whole host of backups. This can therefore be graded as winning off-season for the position but in my opinion it is not yet complete and won’t be until Bolts fans are reprieved of seeing a painfully simple stunt being the undoing of the offensive concept at the hands of Bradley Bozeman and Zion Johnson. Maybe this is misplaced optimism but that’s where I sit with 113 days until the regular season rolls around, here’s hoping something clicks into place one way or the other.