The LA Chargers have hit some home runs with first-round prospects in the NFL Draft but they have also seen a lot of swing-and-misses. While no draft resume is perfect, that is a big reason why the team has struggled in the depth department in recent years.
Several disappointing picks from the 2019 NFL Draft played their last season with the Bolts in 2022. Jerry Tillery was waived after the deadline and Nasir Adderley likely isn't returning. If Drue Tranquill does not return, that entire 2019 class will be gone after their rookie contracts expired.
Draft busts were not exclusive to that draft class, however, as there are players still on the roster that we can safely call busts today.
Here are 4 current Chargers we can safely call busts:
4. Larry Rountree
Larry Rountree was a sixth-round pick so it is hard to call him that big of a bust. Expecting huge things out of a sixth-round pick is simply setting yourself up to fail. That being said, Rountree represents a larger trend for the Chargers, hence why he makes the list at no. 4.
The Chargers have been unable to draft running backs in recent years which is why the team had no depth behind Austin Ekeler and struggled to run the football. Joshua Kelley looked good in 2022, sure, but the team seemingly didn't trust him. They hardly gave him chances and tried giving Sony Michel the RB2 job over him.
Rountree was moved to the practice squad in only his second year in the league when everyone expected him to compete for the RB2 job in 2022. Very few sixth-round picks can feel like a bust but Rountree does.
3. Joe Reed and K.J. Hill
Okay, we are cheating a bit on this inclusion. Not only are we combining two players into one, but we are including players that are no longer with the Chargers. However, Reed and Hill get lumped in on a technicality, you know, because we make the rules.
Reed and Hill should still be with the Chargers, that is the thing. There is a difference between Jerry Tillery and Nasir Adderley, whose rookie contracts are over, and Reed and Hill. The 2023 season will be the fourth season for Hill and Reed, meaning that they should still be on the roster on their rookie deals.
Instead, neither guy is on the team. Hill got the boot in 2021 while Reed lived on the practice squad for all of 2022 and wasn't signed to a futures deal. It is clear that nothing clicked for either receiver under Brandon Staley despite Chargers fans hyping them up in 2020.
Yes, they were a fifth and seventh-round pick but let's not pretend that fans were super stoked for both guys. Reed not dropping a single 20-yard pass in college was thrown around all over social media while fans called Hill the steal of the seventh round as he was a "fourth-round prospect".
At the end of the day, the Chargers took two receivers in the 2020 NFL Draft so they could be the depth of the WR room. You know what was horrible in 2022? The receiver depth. It is because the team massively missed on both guys and that is why the team currently only has three viable NFL wide receivers on the roster.
2. Tre' McKitty
The 2022 season was a really bad one for Tre' McKitty and making it worse was the fact that he showed potential in his rookie season. McKitty was very obviously raw as a pass-catching tight end but there was real potential with his ability as a blocker to at least make an impact in 2022.
Instead of taking a step forward, McKitty remained the same as a pass-catcher (if not taking a step back) and was much worse as a blocker. It isn't just that he was worse at blocking but he was actively a bad blocker and was part of the problem. The Chargers could not rely on him to give any reliable chips on the offensive line.
McKitty still has time to turn it around, sure, but it is unclear if the staff in the building are fully bought in on McKitty. There is legitimate discourse around the Chargers taking a tight end early (potentially in the first round) in the 2023 NFL Draft.
Gerald Everett was solid for the Bolts last season. Sure, he is on a one-year deal, but you would not draft a tight end that early in the draft if you had faith in McKitty blossoming into someone who can hold down the fort as the TE1.
McKitty may not have been a first or second-round pick. But if you are using top-100 draft capital on a tight end you better hope to get someone who can at least be a consistent force on offense. That is not the case at all for McKitty, who could legitimately be the TE4 next season.
1. Kenneth Murray
Now that Tillery is no longer with the team there is not a single player on the Chargers roster that is disliked by fans more than Kenneth Murray. Even when Murray is putting together quality stretches of football, the fanbase lets it be known that they have been disappointed by his game.
To be fair to Murray, it is not his fault that the Chargers gave up so much to get him. The Bolts traded a second and third-round pick to move back into the first round of the 2020 NFL Draft to select Murray. They punted on all of their day two picks so they could bring Murray into the defense to captain the ship.
The results have been far from that. He got a pass in his rookie season because he was a rookie and rookie linebackers are prone to make mistakes. But then the mistakes continued in year two, so much to the point that the team tried making him an edge rusher.
That did not work out and he returned to linebacker in 2022. Murray had flashes of playing really solid for the Bolts but he also made so many mistakes that outweighed the positive plays. If he was a sixth-round linebacker fighting for playing time it would be understandable. But he isn't! He is someone who cost a second and third-round pick.
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Obviously we don't know who the Chargers actually would have taken but if they didn't trade those picks they could have taken Trevon Diggs and Devin Duvernay in the next two rounds. Instead, they have Kenneth Murray.