Losing to the Chicago Bears in Week 8 could have effectively ended the LA Chargers' season. The team would have been 2-5 and with a loss to the Bears on the resume, Brandon Staley might not have lasted another day as the head coach.
With a win, the Bolts are back in striking distance to make a playoff run and one would think that would cause the team to make some kind of addition at the trade deadline. After all, Tom Telesco and Staley have operated like their jobs are at stake, so actually being aggressive this year made sense.
But alas, Telesco continued to do business as he has during his entire stint as the Chargers GM and did not make a trade for talent before Tuesday's 1 p.m. deadline. The roster is set where it is at and fans can expect the "we are happy with the group we have" comments to start coming in the media from Staley and Telesco.
Chargers ignored multiple concerning needs at the trade deadline
It would be one thing if the Chargers were a complete team or if they had help on the way. Last season the story was that the team was holding out for the injured players who were returning to action and that made sense. That is not the case this year as the Bolts have legitimate holes that need to be addressed.
Some of these holes are very easy to address as well. Los Angeles has one of the worst blocking tight end rooms in the sport and that is a big reason why the Chargers have had the worst rushing offense in the sport since Week 1. A blocking TE3 isn't necessarily an asset that costs much, so the Chargers could have gotten it done.
With Joshua Palmer dealing with a knee injury and Mike Williams already out for the year, it might have behooved the team to add more wide receiver depth so there is not a potential repeat of last year. That sounds too logical, as the Chargers obviously did not add wide receiver help.
Maybe it would have been nice to trade for a running back to not only help this year's rushing attack but also to give the team an option for next season (both Austin Ekeler and Joshua Kelley are free agents after the 2024 season). Of course the Chargers didn't address this need.
For better or worse, the Chargers are rolling with the exact same roster that has led the team to a 3-4 record thus far this season. If the Chargers miss the playoffs and Telesco gets canned then he will likely regret not making any aggressive moves at the deadline.