LA Chargers: Analyzing the potential draft day trade options
By Steven Haglund
With the NFL draft rapidly approaching let’s take a look at some potential trade options for the LA Chargers in the first round.
It has been a while since general manager Tom Telesco last made a first-round draft trade. We have to go back to when he moved up to grab former LA Chargers running back Melvin Gordon (still weird typing that).
The Chargers moved up just two spots to draft the former Wisconsin standout, sending their 2015 fourth and 2016 fifth-round picks to the San Francisco 49ers. I think it’s safe to say that trade ended up working out in their favor since they drafted Arik Armstead, who they were likely going to draft anyway and they recently signed him to a new deal.
Other than that, Telesco has mostly been quiet in terms of first-round trades. If he’s going to flip that narrative, now is the perfect time. If the Chargers really want the rights to draft Tua Tagovailoa out of Alabama they likely have to trade ahead of the Miami Dolphins.
Today, a report came out that there are those within that front office that prefer former Oregon quarterback Justin Herbert due to the unfortunate circumstances surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic and uncertainty surrounding Tagovailoa’s health.
Tagovailoa has recently been fully cleared to start throwing at full speed but the NFL remains a fickle business and teams usually prefer to have their own doctors evaluate prospects who have health concerns.
In my opinion, there’s not really a comparison in terms of talent with those two. The Dolphins choosing Herbert over Tagovailoa would be a big mistake, in my opinion, one I would be ecstatic about since the Chargers would end up with the higher ceiling prospect in this scenario. Even with the health concerns, I will take my chances with Tagovailoa.
There is also a chance that all of that is just a smokescreen and the Dolphins will still take the former Alabama standout with the fifth overall pick. In that case, perhaps Telesco and company would elect to trade down to collect more picks and take either Herbert or former Utah State quarterback Jordan Love at a later time.
With all of that being possible, I’ll lay out a couple possibilities on the following slides.