Chargers IOL Jake Slaughter's early progress will be important to track for the team. At the draft, he was announced as a guard. The organization from top on down is convinced that the former Florida Gators center can have positional flexibility in the league. It's part of why he was drafted for Mike McDaniel's scheme over other potential guard options.
In his five collegiate seasons, Slaughter only played center. At the Senior Bowl, teams wanted to see if he was versatile enough to play guard. But the experiment was short lived. Slaughter had just two reps at left guard-rather infamously, they did not go his way.
One Chargers coach believes Jake Slaughter can make the guard transition work sooner rather than later.
It's of course not terribly fair to judge Slaughter off of just two reps at the Senior Bowl. But they were concerning for a player who might need to start at guard in 2026 rather than down the road. At the same time, Slaughter has the athletic profile of someone that can make the switch. He put up an elite RAS mark in the pre-draft process with a 9.97. The lateral explosiveness is there for him if the functional strength and technique catch up.
Chargers OL coach Butch Barry was asked about working with Slaughter so far and how the conversion to guard is going. Here's what he had to say:
"He's great, he's learning everything," Barry started. "He's doing center, he's doing guard, he's doing a lot of different things. He's been great to work with. He really has. He's really sharp, he's all in on it. He loves ball. Everything from the draft process, really tough. There's a lot of great qualities about him that we love."
On the center to guard transition, Barry explained it like this:
"It's individual, each guy is a little different," Barry said. "I think that center to guard is easier than guard to center. Because you've gotta set the table, you've gotta set the table for the offensive line-how we want to declare different things. So if you're forced to have to do it at center, the game becomes a little slower when you go to guard."
Barry mentioned the inverse scenario where the guard has more responsibility when attempting to convert to center. To an extent, the Chargers experienced this when they tried to put former LG Zion Johnson at center in the offseason last year.
"I think the transition [from center to guard] is a little bit faster in terms of assignments. Now, there's some physical things that a guy at center who moves to guard in terms of length that you have to be concerned with because you have more neutral zone. But obviously we feel confident with all of that with him [Slaughter]."
Slaughter has worked at both guard at center so far in OTAs. Yesterday, he worked at guard while also being the second string center for Trey Lance's unit. For all intents and purposes, it seems like he's both competing for the left guard job while being the team's true backup center to Tyler Biadasz.
So far, LG Kayode Awosika has gotten the bulk of the first unit reps at the position. But nothing is truly set in stone there before the Chargers put the pads on in training camp. Slaughter will have to earn it— and at least for now in the eyes of the coaching staff, they believe it's possible.
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