The most discussed selection the LA Chargers made in the 2026 NFL Draft wasn't the team's first-round pick, it was the second-round pick. Offensive lineman Jake Slaughter was a bit of a surprising pick and there are strong reasons to be for and against the selection.
On the positive side, Slaughter was one of the better centers in college football last season and has an athletic profile that should translate wonderfully to the NFL. On the other hand, the Chargers already have a starting center and Slaughter never played guard in college. He struggled at the position at the Senior Bowl.
Adding to the polarization is the fact that Slaughter clocked in as the No. 96 prospect on the consensus big board. Pre-draft big boards don't usually translate to the draft itself, but it appears as if the Chargers reached for Slaughter one round earlier than they had to.
It turns out the Chargers may have made the right choice in "reaching" for the Florida offensive lineman. Baltimore Ravens GM Eric DeCosta, who drafted Chargers draft crush Vega Ioane in the first round, shared his disappointment in not drafting a center as the team was caught off guard by how the market unfolded.
"DeCosta said he was 'a little surprised' that Logan Jones and Jake Slaughter came off the board at that point and that the value was not there for the Ravens to trade back up after selecting Jones," Josh Alper of Pro Football Talk writes.
Chargers secured Jake Slaughter by catching the Ravens (and likely others) by surprise
There's two ways to read this, and because Slaughter is polarizing, it probably will be read both ways by the fanbase. The negative perception is that the Chargers did, in fact, reach for a player who other GMs didn't think should have gone in the second round.
That's probably the wrong read on this situation, though. Instead. it makes it clear why the Chargers had to act with urgency. After all, they weren't the only team that took a center at the tail-end of the second round. With the Bears taking Logan Allen, the Bolts had no other option.
Slaughter's tape and his fit on this team can be dissected and debated all the way up until he plays for the Chargers, but one thing is clear: the Bolts really liked Slaughter and they wanted to do anything they could to secure him.
Baltimore clearly thought he was going to go in the third round and with the team needing a center, was okay taking that risk of letting him drop to round three. And if that happened, the Ravens would have kept him from Los Angeles just like they did with Ioane in the first.
The Chargers' options were either to draft Slaughter in the second or probably miss out on him altogether. Yet somehow, the team still found a way to maximize the situation by trading down eight spots to pick up extra capital.
Joe Hortiz caught the NFL by surprise by taking Slaughter when he did, but it's now clear that he had to. This isn't the case of the Chargers reaching up for someone who should have gone in round three, it's a case of the Chargers keeping a potential hidden gem from going anywhere else.
Will it actually pay off? Only time has the answer to that question. But the fact remains that the Chargers played their cards perfectly.
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