While the optimism for this team is still sky-high, the Los Angeles Chargers undeniably suffered a major loss when starting center Tyler Biadasz went down with an ACL injury in training camp.
Biadasz, who is a top 10-15 center in the NFL when healthy, was meant to represent a major upgrade over Bradley Bozeman—who was one of the worst (if not the worst) at his position last season along a floundering Chargers offensive line. Thankfully, the Chargers prepared for a scenario like this.
Their decision to select Jake Slaughter in the second round of the 2026 NFL Draft was, in many ways a contingency plan. He could compete in the short-term at left guard, but if the team needed him to, Los Angeles felt confident he could take over duties at center right away. We'll see how things unfold there, but there's reason to be tentatively confident about Slaughter's ability to hold up his end of the bargain.
But Biadasz's injury shakes the depth of the Chargers' offensive line as a whole, and although the team has somewhat accounted for this by keeping most of their NFL-caliber linemen on the 53-man roster, don't rule out a move to shore up their depth at some point over the course of this season.
Chargers should be looking for buy-low opportunities to shore up their O-line depth
The Chargers should be fine in the immediate sense when it comes to the starting offensive line. Slaughter was one of the best centers in all of college football last season—allowing just four pressures across 421 pass-blocking snaps—and he's shown rapid improvement at both guard and center during his time in a Chargers uniform.
Mike McDaniel's scheme, moreover, is more than capable of working around any deficits in guard play. He simply needs athletic and willing protectors in those spots, and he's got them in Kayode Awosika and Cole Strange.
But another injury is where things could start to get dicey.
As of now, the Chargers backup center behind Slaughter is UDFA Jacob Spomer. He was one of the most consistent centers in the entire league during the preseason, and he more than earned his spot on the 53-man roster. But he has yet to take a regular season snap at the NFL level, and tossing him into the fray would not be an ideal outcome for Los Angeles.
At guard, it seems as though Trey Pipkins III could be the first man up to replace either Awosika or Strange, assuming that Jim Harbaugh's claims about a looming competition between Pipkins and Awosika for the starting spot are overblown. Pipkins hasn't looked good when he's slotted into at guard throughout his career, allowing 21 pressures and six sacks across 705 snaps at right guard in 2024.
Beyond that, the Chargers have Trevor Penning, who played his way out of the guard competition almost as soon as camp started, and sixth-round rookies Alex Harkey and Logan Taylor. Branson Taylor, who was involved in the starting left guard competition throughout camp, is starting the season on the IR.
We don't know what claims they submitted on the waiver wire, but both of their primary preseason acquisition options—Jordan Meredith of the Las Vegas Raiders and Trevor Keegan of the Dallas Cowboys—have found new homes before the start of the regular season.
As much as Joe Hortiz loves his late-round draft capital, expect him to be searching the market for a potential cheap addition to this room. They added sixth-round picks with their trades of Avery Smith and TeRah Edwards. Those could come to represent valuable assets if a move needs to be made.
While their depth is still intact, therefore, the ramifications of the Biadasz injury will stretch across this entire season.
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