Send us a Question for our Podcast (in the next 24 hours!)

Hey Stormcloud, we’re going to do a #TDUMailbag segment on the show (recording a little after Monday Night Football finishes).

If you want to ask a question that we’ll answer on the show, comment on this post.

Cheers

Alister

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TDU_Alister

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Long time team fan, podcaster (with Thunder Down Under Chargers Podcast), husband to a beautiful wife, friend to all fellow Chargers fanatics, and father-to-be!

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KevDiego(@kevdiego)

#7451

Member

5 months ago

With the trade deadline one week out, what can the Chargers do to best position this team for a playoff run?
Why do you think the Chargers continue to trot Bozeman out at Center? Intangibles/Leadership? Pictures of Jim and GRo at Antonio Gates poker party? There are far too many reps where Bozeman loses immediately (as in a complete whif on his block). Not sure how bad James is, but he can’t be worse (can he?).
Leading up to the Viking game, there was a lot of moaning about how terrible Hortiz and Harbaugh were. I thought the reaction was immature and missed the big picture. At close to the mid-way point of their second season, what grade would you give the GM, HC and each coordinator?
Related Question 1: McCoy is not well regarded in Charger coaching history, which is mostly deserved after his 2 dumpster fire seasons in spite of having prime Rivers at QB. He was, however 1-1 in the post-season, which is one more playoff win than Harbaugh. With Tennessee coming up, how would you rate McCoy as a coach? I thought the Titans played pretty well against the Colts, but were clearly overmatched. Good seeing Mike still rocking the visor. Gives me a lot of confidence heading into the game
Related Question 2: With the Cowboys coming up, led by Marty’s son, where do you think Marty ranks in Charger HC history? I think he deserves a lot of credit (along with AJ Smith) in taking a dog shit culture and creating a winner. He was, however, 0-2 in the playoffs. For comparison, Norv Turner was 3-3 (and won about as many games as Marty). I think Gillman and Coryell are on top, followed by Bobby Ross (also 3-3 in the playoffs and got the Chargers to their only SB appearance).

Tau837(@tau837)

#7454

Reply to KevDiego

5 months ago

Leading up to the Viking game, there was a lot of moaning about how terrible Hortiz and Harbaugh were. I thought the reaction was immature and missed the big picture. At close to the mid-way point of their second season, what grade would you give the GM, HC and each coordinator?

Harbaugh (B+)

Positives:

16-10 so far after taking over a team that went 5-12 in 2023.
Appears he has instilled a culture that is meaningful to the team’s success.
Brought DC Minter, who has significantly elevated the defense.
Staff has coached up some players that were not impactful under the previous coaching staff, most notably WR Johnston and LB Henley.
No press conference meltdowns so far, and probably will never have one.

Negatives:

Loyalty to Roman.
Loyalty to lousy players like Bozeman and Matlock.
0-1 playoff record, and it was a beatdown. 1 game sample size, but it will stick as a negative until he wins in the postseason.

Hortiz (B-)

Positives:

Took over a mess and fixed it. Big credit for that. 16-10 so far after taking over a team that went 5-12 in 2023.
Drafted well in both drafts.
He missed on LB Colson, 6th round project OL Taylor, and all 3 of his 7th round picks but seems to have hit on everything else, with the possible exception of Edge Kennard.
This is a strong group for 2 drafts: T Alt, RB Hampton, RB Vidal, WR McConkey, WR Harris, WR KLS, TE Gadsden, IDL Caldwell, IDL Eboigbe, CB Still, CB Hart, S Mickens.
Demonstrated willingness to trade, and has already built a good track record in trades.
Successfully built depth into the roster to a level we haven’t seen in a long time.

Negatives:

While his drafts have been good, that ignores the opportunity cost of his draft decisions.
His biggest failure was not drafting a center in 2024, and it has hurt the team for both seasons so far.
But that’s not all. No defensive picks before the 3rd round in either draft; Alt the only meaningful pick used on OL; 5 WRs drafted to 4 OL/DL; 2 of 6 day 1/2 picks used on non-premium positions (LB Colson, RB Hampton); etc.
Handled free agency relatively poorly in his second offseason despite unprecedented cap space:
Let Ford go for an affordable price.
Failed to land a difference maker. His best free agent signing was arguably WR Allen, and he was kind of forced into that due to Williams’ retirement.
His roster approach gives a lot of flexibility going forward but also a lot of challenge, particularly on the lines, where the Chargers have only:
4 OL under contract: Slater (coming off major injury), Alt, Becton, and Bozeman… but Bozeman ideally shouldn’t be counted on to play.
2 IDL under contract: Eboigbe and Caldwell.
3 Edge players under contract: Tuli, Kennard, and Dupree… but Dupree probably should be released and it seems very risky to count on Kennard.
0-1 playoff record, and it was a beatdown. 1 game sample size, but it will stick as a negative until the team wins in the postseason.

Tau837(@tau837)

#7455

Reply to Tau837

5 months ago

Sub-bullets eliminated… sorry, I should just stop using bullets in this forum and just use whitespace, since it seemingly randomly changes formatting.

KevDiego(@kevdiego)

Member

#7458

Reply to Tau837

5 months ago

I think bullets are fine. Sub-bullets don’t work. I May shift to something like: ->

KevDiego(@kevdiego)

Member

#7460

Reply to Tau837

5 months ago

These are fair points. A few reactions:

If you’re giving Hortiz a B-, what would you give Telesco? F-? While I can point to specific decisions (and not drafting a center in 2024 may be the limiting factor on both the 24 and 25 seasons), the overall process has been so much better.

Not a fan of trading up, but Joe made 2 trades to move up, neither were moving back into the first round, both had minimal costs and both landed impact players (Ladd, Gadsden). Compare that with Telesco’s continual insistence to trade back into the first to land players like Kenneth Murry

You didn’t grade the coordinators. A few thoughts on that:

I wonder what coaches objectives are for in-season game-plans. I know they try to evolve as the season goes on, with each staff keeping something in the bag for the post-season. They also want to put things down on film to give opposing coordinators something to worry about. It’s easy to complain about a lack of adjustments (I do it all the time), but I may not completely understand the 3-D chess match that the staff is playing with the rest of the league.

Minter/Defensive Staff: B

Player development: A+. This staff has taken retreads and 5th round rookies and turned them into average to above average NFL players. This may meet-exceed Marty-level player development (a strength of the Schottenheimer staff)
Game-Planning: B-; While they can look good against teams with favorable matchups, physical teams pick on the lite boxes and the staff does not adjust well. Will be interesting to see how they play Pittsburgh and Philly

Roman/Offense: C

Player Development: C. I think QB, WR and RB are the only position groups where players have clearly developed. QJs improvement, getting Harris to produce so early in his rookie year, Ladd’s development. Well done Sanjay. Lance was great in pre-season (I like Day a lot), and Vidal/Patterson looked much better. TE has been a mixed bag. Conklin is bad. Hurst was bad. Dissly is good. Gadsden has been great. OL is an issue. There are glaring issues that have not been addressed. Zero player development
Game Planning: C+ When the matchups are favorable, the offense looks great. The inability week after week to not figure out how to pass protect is beyond frustrating. The last week was encouraging, but the issue has been there for 2 years and it’s still not fixed. Fisk > Matlock, but the staff keeps trotting Scotty out there. With Keenan back, they have a 3rd down, gotta have it play that works every time, so that helps. Still frustratingly stubborn.

Ficken: C

I used to complain about the Chargers inability to coach up kickers. I wanted them to bring in Carney or other kicking specialist to help with kickers mechanics. Not sure if they did something like this, but they took a PS-level kicker and turned him into one of the best kickers in the NFL. Well done
Kickoff coverage and return schemes failed to adjust to the new rules, and it’s hurting this team.
JK Scott is inconsistent as a punter (but great as a holder). That’s a problem continuing from last season and has still not been addressed.

TDU_Alister(@alisterlloyd)

Author

#7468

Reply to KevDiego

5 months ago

Kev – thanks for the questions mate.

We ran out of time to get through all of them last night. But my responses to these are:

To best position ourselves for a playoff run, I think any of these options (within the $2.5m-$3m range) would incrementally improve the team: RB Breece Hall (Jets might not trade him away given his recent strong form), RB Tyler Allgeier, DT Calais Campbell (our interior pass rush is improving but I’d like us to build on this strength), DB Alontae Taylor (from the Saints; a very feisty, blitzing Nickel defender heading into free agency at the end of the year). Offensive Tackle options like Jack Conklin are also a possibility, but I’m not confident they represent a significant upgrade over a healthy Pipkins/how Bobby Hart is currently playing.

On Bozeman, I think you’re onto something with the incriminating photos angle; but it’s probably the classic, conservative “fear of the unknown” vs the guy Herbert’s now been working with for 26 games. Their plan against the blitz is much better this year than last, I’ll give credit to the entire OL for that. Stunts/twists remain a problem (to a slightly lesser degree than last year). Bozeman is strong enough not to get beaten by the bull rush very oftne (if ever) which is a good thing. But he’s consistently beaten by swim moves and any remotely athletic DTs (a bad thing). He’s also a below average run blocker at this stage of his career but probably just had his best run blocking game of the year based on my tape watch. He actually executed a combo block and then climbed to the second level to successfully seal the LB on one Vidal run this week. I almost fell of my chair.

We gave out grades for some of these on last week’s show, but I’ll focus on the main two men of the organisation. I’m firmly in the A/B+ category for both of Harbaugh & Hortiz. Harbaugh would be higher than B+ if he wasn’t so clueless with analytics and Hortiz would be higher than B+ if he’d addressed the IOL and had been slightly more aggressive in free agency. But I also think it’s very easy to single out the one or two areas where Hortiz has been deficient, whilst overlooking that he has basically improved every other part of the football team and inherited 10 years’ of rubbish from one of the most incompetent long-tenured GMs in NFL history. B+ is really the lowest I could reasonably go on Hortiz. Looking at how many draft picks & FA hits there have been so far, both trade ups have been massive hits, and the healthy cap position the team is now in approaching 2026, it’s really probably an A grade for him. As Tau notes below, he will have to get busy again this offseason with not many players under contract. The honeymoon period will be over and the team needs to become the deep playoff contender Harbaugh was signed to make them.

Related Question 1: McCoy is still terrible. The Titans were not remotely competitive against the Colts (score was 38-7 heading into Q4) and McCoy punted twice in this game in Colts territory on a 4th & 3 and a 4th &4 while the score was still only 17-7. He’s a clown.

Related Question 2: I’l defer to your deeper knowledge on this my friend! I was born in 1990 and started following the Chargers in 2008.

KevDiego(@kevdiego)

Member

#7483

Reply to TDU_Alister

5 months ago

Related question 2: Gilman was before my time & Air Coryell was from my childhood. We did, however, have season tickets during that era, so saw lots of Fouts/Winslow. Great team that could have challenged for a championship if Gene Kline wasn’t such a clown.

Gilman did win the only championship in Charger history, Coryell is a legendary HOF coach and Ross took the Chargers to their only super bowl. They have to be 1-3.

Tau837(@tau837)

#7448

5 months ago

Should the Chargers trade Quentin Johnston? Suppose they could get a 3rd round pick from Pittsburgh for him? That would mean adding a day 2 pick while spreading the target snaps between McConkey, Allen, Harris, KLS, Gadsden, and the other TEs and RBs. Not a bad thing. I’m not advocating for that trade, just posing the question for consideration.

Are there any other players they should consider trading away?

Should they consider trading for any player? Keeping in mind that they have $2.5M to $3M in available cap space without making any contract adjustments. I am skeptical.

Should the Chargers consider releasing any veterans not getting much/any playing time for them in order to enable the player(s) to sign with another team? That could result in a minor cap gain for the Chargers. The team did this with SJD a couple seasons ago, but I have not identified a player for whom this makes sense.

TDU_Alister(@alisterlloyd)

Author

#7449

Reply to Tau837

5 months ago

Great questions Tau. Thanks!

KevDiego(@kevdiego)

Member

#7450

Reply to Tau837

5 months ago

Not trying to answer the questions for the TDU guys, but… Do you think the Chargers could get a 3rd round pick for QJ? Where could they get more value, letting him walk (comp pick) or in-season trade?

With Reagor on the PS, I think I would take a 3rd round pick for QJ. Just not sure the Steelers would give up a day 2 pick for a talented but flawed dude that has pretty significant limitations.

Tau837(@tau837)

#7452

Reply to KevDiego

5 months ago

Not sure they could get a 3rd for him, but agree that is the price. Nothing less IMO.

If they let him walk, that is after the 2026 season, making the pick a 2027 comp pick. As you know, in the comp formula, best case is a pick at the end of the 3rd. But I am skeptical the Chargers under Hortiz are going to get top comp picks… their roster building strategy so far ensures that every season they will have a lot of cap space to spend, meaning they will sign free agents who will figure into the formula.

So trading him now for a 3rd should yield a higher pick a year earlier in comparison to letting him walk.

An element to consider is that Pittsburgh is an AFC playoff contender. The Chargers could face them in the playoffs.

KevDiego(@kevdiego)

Member

#7453

Reply to Tau837

5 months ago

I agree that if they could get a 3rd for him now, they should make the trade. Just not sure Pittsburg would give up that much draft capitol for a player with so many holes in his game. If Rogers was frustrated with MWill, QJ could make his head explode.

And… I have no fear of facing QJ in the playoffs.

As for the comp pick strategy, I think the lack of good players drafted by Telesco created the salary cap bulge. When the Chargers need to pay Alt, Tuli, Still, Ladd, Gadsden, etc, there will be less cap space for FAs

Maybe the Chargers would be better off getting a 5th (or two) for QJ?

Blue Beers(@blue-beers)

Member

#7456

Reply to Tau837

5 months ago

I would trade him for a 3rd round pick in a heartbeat and probably would trade him for even a 4th or a 5th. I think they can put up enough points without him.

I’d try and shore up either of the lines if they can, especially if they’re grabbing a useful player that would be likely to stick on the team beyond this season.

The one vet they can cut is Tyler Conklin although it wouldn’t really save them much money. They could possibly cut bait with Dupree too. He hasn’t been very good anyways so even if there were another injury I’m not sure he’s much better than a replacement level player at this point.

Tau837(@tau837)

#7457

Reply to Blue Beers

5 months ago

With regard to cutting Conklin or Dupree, it only matters if another team would pick them up. If not, as veterans on the opening day roster, the Chargers owe them their full salaries. That said, I think both of them would probably be picked up. I could get on board with cutting either or both of them. Especially Conklin.

KevDiego(@kevdiego)

Member

#7459

Reply to Tau837

5 months ago

Conklin has been surprisingly terrible. I had high hopes for the dude, but he looks completely lost on the field.

KathmanduSteve(@kathmandusteve)

Member

#7462

Reply to Tau837

5 months ago

I don’t like the idea of trading QJ for a draft pick. We haven’t had injuries to the WR position — yet. He’s vastly improved. He’s a genuine threat in the end zone.

KevDiego(@kevdiego)

Member

#7465

Reply to KathmanduSteve

5 months ago

The argument for it is:

QJ still cannot make the difficult, contested catch. He fucks up the easy catches less, but he can’t fight for the ball. This limits his use.
His route tree is limited. Roman and Lal are deservedly earning credit for “using QJ correctly,” but this highlights how incomplete a WR he is
The WR room is 5-7 players deep, depending on how you feel about Reagor and Davis. The Chargers are clearly building quality depth in the room

All that said, it would take a trade for a very good interior OL player for me to consider this trade. I just don’t think anything happens.

TDU_Alister(@alisterlloyd)

Author

#7469

Reply to Tau837

5 months ago

We answered all of these last night I think, Tau.

QJ’s reception % (63.6%) right now ranks behind Tre Harris (73.3%), Keenan (69.6%) & Ladd (67.2%). He runs deeper routes so it’s not apples-to-apples, but to my mind he is the guy I am the least confident will execute catches against the better teams or in the playoffs.

If we could extract a third round pick for him it would be difficult to say no, but it’s easier for me to make these decisions from my desk. The Chargers are 5-3, morale is high this week, and the Offense looks deep and versatile. To trade away QJ right now, when you could probably trade him after the season for similar value, would be a big call. Glad I’m not the one making it.