Latest 2024 NFL Mock Draft from analyst with Chargers ties would be a disaster
By Jason Reed
The LA Chargers have quite the valuable asset to utilize this offseason in order to build out the 2024 roster under Jim Harbaugh. After a disappointing season, the Chargers hold the fifth pick in the 2024 NFL Draft in a class where quarterbacks are going to dominate early.
There is a world in which the first four picks of the draft are quarterbacks, leaving the Chargers with a choice of the best non-quarterback prospects in the class. If that happens, it is almost a certainty that the team would draft Ohio State's Marvin Harrison Jr.
All that being said, there have been real conversations around the team potentially trading back in the 2024 NFL Draft to add more draft capital. NFL Network draft analyst Daniel Jeremiah, who has direct ties to the Chargers as the color commentator for the team's radio feed, explored this possibility in his latest 2024 mock draft.
Jeremiah certainly took some big swings in his latest 2024 NFL mock draft, which included the Chargers making perhaps the worst move known to mankind in trading down with the New York Jets.
Daniel Jeremiah's mock draft would be a literal disaster for the Chargers
Jeremiah's most recent mock has the Chargers trading down to the 10th pick while MHJ is still on the board. There is absolutely no chance the Chargers would trade down with the best non-QB prospect still available and if the team did, it would be a massive misfire.
Even if Harrison was off the board, it would be a mistake to trade down from the fifth pick and not select Malik Nabers. It would be even more of a mistake to trade down, not select Nabers, and select an offensive lineman at 10. To make this deal even worse, Jeremiah proposes that the Chargers get a second-round pick next year for moving down. Not this year.
So the Chargers would be trading a chance to land a franchise wide receiver with the fifth pick to take a tackle so that they can pay Trey Pipkins $9 million to be a swing tackle all for a pick that could end up being in the 50s next year? Sounds great (sarcasm included)!
This wide receiver room is as bad as it gets and the Chargers cannot afford to pass on getting one of the two most impressive wide receivers to hit the draft in recent years. You don't trade Keenan Allen if you are not going to get a wide receiver in the first round. It is as simple as that.
Sure, this wide receiver class is deep and there are some who argue that the Chargers could get a first-round-caliber receiver in the second round. While that is possible, recent years have shown us how much of a crapshoot late first-round receivers can be.
Sometimes they are instant contributors like Jordan Addison, Zay Flowers, or even Justin Jefferson. But other times they are massively disappointing like Treylon Burks, Quentin Johnston, or Jalen Reagor.
And sometimes they are just in-between, which is not terrible but certainly would not give the Chargers a true WR1. What if the Chargers draft another Christian Watson, Elijah Moore, or Jonathan Mingo? Is that going to be enough for the Bolts? Definitely not.
There are two of the most surefire wide receiver prospects in recent draft history at the top of this board and the Chargers have a pretty decent chance of landing at least one of them. Trading out of that, especially without getting another pick in the 2024 NFL Draft, would be asinine.