The Los Angeles Chargers certainly still have some doubts swirling around their offensive line. Needless to say, that's not a desirable outcome after entering the offseason with $100 million in cap space.
The team platooned Kayode Awosika and Trey Pipkins III at left guard in their Week 1 matchup with the Arizona Cardinals, and neither looked particularly inspiring in their time on the field. If anything, Awosika certainly has the edge on Pipkins, though, after Pipkins notable failure to hold defensive tackle Dante Stills back on a pivotal fourth down in the first half.
Slaughter held his own in terms of his pressure allowance, but he struggled to create space for the run game in his NFL debut. Cole Strange, meanwhile, allowed five pressures in his debut at right guard for the Chargers. That's not a good look for a player that went unchallenged during training camp as a starter along the team's offensive line.
But if there's any room for optimism after Week 1, it comes in the returns of bookend tackles Joe Alt and Rashawn Slater. Both Slater and Alt suffered season-ending injuries in 2025, with Slater missing the entirety of the campaign with a torn patellar tendon and Alt being limited to just six games by an ankle injury.
Both players looked like the stars we know them to be in Week 1 against the Cardinals. If there's any path forward for this offensive line, it relies upon them maintaining that level of performance over the duration of the season.
Joe Alt and Rashawn Slater provide the Chargers with a baseline of hope exiting brutal Week 1 matchup
As mentioned, above we know what Alt and Slater can be when healthy—top-10 tackles in the NFL. When you have that available to you on both sides of the line, there's a little more wiggle room for what goes down on the interior.
There was never truly a doubt that Alt would be able to return to his previous form, and he accomplished that on Sunday. Across 39 pass-blocking snaps, he allowed zero pressures and was one of the few Chargers actually able to get movement in the run game.
There was some room for anxiety when it came to Slater, though. The history of players returning from patellar tendon injuries hasn't always been great, and that was Slater's second season-ending injury in his five-season career. He allowed two pressures across 39 pass-blocking snaps on Sunday, but he graded higher than anyone else along the Chargers' O-line as a run blocker.
With those two pieces operating at full strength, Los Angeles has a bit of time to find their footing in terms of their protection. But not much.
They'll need to face off against Maxx Crosby in their Week 2 matchup against the Las Vegas Raiders. Although the Raiders don't have the complementary pass-rush weapons to truly maximize Crosby, that sort of weapon can't simply be ignored.
They'll then need to face off against the emergent Greg Rousseau and the Buffalo Bills, followed by the Seattle Seahawks, Denver Broncos, and Kansas City Chiefs. None of those defenses looked particularly inspiring in their season openers, but rest assured that each has the pass-rush weapons to exploit a weak Chargers interior if it comes down to it.
The floor of this offensive line, though, was always going to be determined by how quickly Alt and Slater could get back to full strength. It seems like they were already there in Week 1, and that's a massively encouraging sign as Los Angeles attempts to sort out the rest of their protection through these early portions of the season.
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