LA Chargers: Why Desmond King should and shouldn’t be traded

The LA Chargers should preserve secondary depth by keeping King.

It’s worth pointing out that the LA Chargers have had a lot of injuries in secondary over the years. It reached a critical point with James and Phillips both going down last year. Even if the team is intending to put Harris in the slot, King could still provide valuable depth. Knock on wood for as few injuries as possible in 2020, but injuries happen.

King is an NFL level cornerback now. Even if the Chargers got a third or fourth-round pick in return for him, the cornerback or safety they would draft would probably not be able to be an efficient day one starter.

As mentioned earlier, Adderley and Jenkins seem to be the safeties other than James that have a chance to start. If either or both of them start showing some weaknesses in coverage earlier in the year, it wouldn’t be a bad idea to have a contingency plan.

The same is true for the second cornerback spot opposite Casey Hayward. Michael Davis and Brandon Facyson both have their weaknesses in the open field and in coverage.

The struggling of a safety or cornerback on the depth chart wouldn’t mean that the team could just slide King into their spot permanently. But if a specific cornerback is struggling in one game, it may not be bad for King to see a couple more snaps. The same is true if the free safety opposite James isn’t quite working out in certain spots of games.

Perhaps the Chargers don’t intend on keeping King past this year because he’ll either regress further or improve out of their price range, but having him for this year to fill holes in the defense due to injury or lack of depth might be better than getting mid to late-round pick for him.