The 2023 NFL Draft is an extremely important one for the LA Chargers. Los Angeles does not have the luxury of spending much money this offseason thanks to the team's salary-cap situation, making the draft all the more important.
While the Chargers were able to add some impact players in last year's draft, they also drafted two players who were not NFL-ready in JT Woods and Isaiah Spiller. With several players likely departing in free agency, the Bolts cannot afford that same reality this year.
In a perfect world, the Bolts would trade down in the 2023 NFL Draft to pick up extra picks. Los Angeles could potentially pick up another top-75 pick to land that one extra impact rookie. The problem is that Chargers GM Tom Telesco has never actually traded down in a draft, leaving many fans to assume that it won't happen this year.
Well, Telesco may have slipped up and revealed plans to execute his first-ever trade-down in 2023. In an appearance on 'Good Morning Football', Telesco said that the team has seven draft picks and we will see how many they actually have on draft night. He then specifically says the team will try and find seven or eight impact players.
This morning on GMFB, Tom Telesco specifically hints at draft trades.
— BOLTS Draft Talk (@BoltsDraftTalk) March 1, 2023
What do you mean 7 or 8, or we'll see how many we actually have?
Could Tom Telesco trade down? Trade a player for a pick? What's going on here?#BoltUp pic.twitter.com/s9PHO8roJd
Can you hear that? That is the sound of thousands of Chargers fans collectively cheering at the same time. Trading down in the 2023 NFL Draft is an extremely popular idea among the fanbase.
The 2023 NFL Draft is the perfect draft for the Chargers to trade down.
This is perhaps the best trade-down situation that the Chargers have ever been in. The Bolts have the 21st overall pick in the draft and last year, the New England Patriots were able to pick up a third and fourth-round pick from the Kansas City Chiefs by moving down eight spots.
We see teams trade up in this range of picks all the time as there is this belief that the top 20 to 25 prospects are the first tier of prospects before they drop off. There is always someone who slips who was expected to be a top-15 pick or someone who fits a positional need that prompts a team to trade up so they can secure said player.
Plus, the Chargers are in a perfect spot with their draft strategy to trade down. There is not a pressing first-round need for the Bolts like in previous drafts. The team needs to replace some impending free agents, sure, but they could go a multitude of ways in the draft itself.
For that reason, it is easier to move down 8-10 spots in the draft as the team knows that it will have multiple options by the time they are back on the clock. The chance of there being a home-run prospect in an area of need at 21 is slim to none. Even if someone like Michael Mayer is available, they could just move down and target Dalton Kincaid or Darnell Washington.
We ultimately won't know if the Chargers trade down until the 2023 NFL Draft is underway. Since it is not a high selection in the draft, the odds of the Bolts making a trade before the draft itself is slim to none.
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However, one the Bolts are on the clock with the 21st pick, every Chargers fan will be looking for that breaking news ticker on the bottom that they traded down in order to pick up more draft capital.