The Chargers went all-in on the 2023 season only to end up with a 5-12 record and a hefty bill for the 2024 season. Thankfully, the Chargers hired Jim Harbaugh and Joe Hortiz to pilot the team out of this mess while also reinventing the culture of the franchise.
According to Over The Cap, the Chargers are currently $45.8 million over next year's projected salary cap. This figure does not factor in Corey Linsley's potential retirement, although. Linsley said there is a 99% chance that he will be forced into retirement by a non-emergent heart issue that kept him out of action for most of the 2023 season.
If Linsley retires then it will free up $8.9 million in cap space with the Chargers paying him $5.2 million in dead money for the signing bonus money he was owed in 2024 and 2025. Thus, the Chargers are essentially $36.9 million above the cap and need to not just get cap compliant, but make spending room as well.
How the Chargers can free up $62 million in cap space:
Cut Eric Kendricks to free up $6.5 million
This is the least amount of money that the Chargers can save but it does not mean that it isn't important. The Chargers can theoretically sign two depth free agents with this $6.5 million. Those depth free agents would probably play better than Kendricks did in 2023 as well.
Kendricks wasn't awful last season but the arrow is definitely pointing in the wrong direction. The last thing the Chargers need to do is commit to an expensive veteran who is likely only going to get worse in 2024.
Thus, the Eric Kendricks signing will go down as Tom Telesco's last truly bad signing of his tenure as Chargers GM. Hopefully he brings the same kind of signings with him to the Las Vegas Raiders.
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Trade Khalil Mack to free up $23.25 million
This is the hard part of the business. Khalil Mack is coming off a career year and in a perfect world the Chargers would be able to keep him on the roster. But considering the team's salary-cap situation, and the fact that Mack has the second-largest non-quarterback cap hit in the sport, it is time to move on.
While it is a bummer to move on from a player after a career year, Mack's career year did have a positive impact on the Chargers. Prior to the 2023 season it looked like Mack was destined to be a cap casualty as he continued to get older.
But after a breakout season, it is not hard to come up with a list of teams that could be interested in trading for Mack. There are several teams in the league that need to add an edge rusher, can afford his base salary in 2024, and have the draft picks to send.
A lot of Chargers fans push back on this idea but we all have to be realistic about the situation. As great as Mack was in 2023, he is going to be 33 years old in 2024. We see it all the time: players on the other side of 30 regress without warning, and are much more likely to get hurt as well.
It is better to be a year too early than a year too late with these decisions. It is far better to trade Mack for a mid-round pick than the alternative, which would be trading multiple years of a younger Joey Bosa. Yes, Bosa has been more injury-prone in recent years, but he has a better chance of being healthy in 2024 than Mack.
Cut Mike Williams to free up $20 million
Unfortunately, Mike Williams does not have the same value as Khalil Mack. In the best-case scenario, the Chargers would be able to trade both Mack and Williams for draft capital as the money saved would be the same. In the worst-case scenario, the Chargers would have to cut both players.
In the most realistic scenario, the Chargers will end up trading Mack and will have to cut ties with Williams and absorb his dead cap hit. Thankfully, it will still free up $20 million in cap space by doing this.
Williams undoubtedly has a huge impact on the Chargers offense and there was a noticeable difference when he was not on the field last season. The Chargers are going to have to find a way to replace his contested-catch ability, which is a lot easier said than done.
All that being said, Williams is as injury prone as it comes, is coming off a torn ACL, has hit 30 years old, and has a cap hit of $32.46 million. We have to be realistic and realize that as impactful as Williams can be, he simply is not worth a massive cap hit with all the risks.
Harbaugh hasn't said a word about Williams this offseason, which all but confirms his departure from Los Angeles. Don't be surprised when the news breaks that the team has cut the 2017 first-round pick.
Extend Keenan Allen to free up $12.25 million
This number is not actually set in stone and the Chargers can decide just how much they want to free up by signing Keenan Allen to an extension. The Chargers can covert some of his base salary from this season into a bonus that can get paid out over the length of the extension.
In this instance, we chose $12.25 million because it is a realistic number that the Chargers could put off toward future years while also giving us the nice round number of $62 million in newfound space.
Allen has a $34.7 million cap hit this season, $18.1 million of which is via his base salary. Instead of cutting ties with Allen, the team should sign him to a two-year contract extension worth $24 million. That might not seem like much, but that is around the same contract DeAndre Hopkins got and he is younger than Allen.
The Chargers would be converting $12.25 million of Allen's salary into bonuses over those two years. If the team wanted it to be the same each year it would be $6.125 million, making Allen's cap hit in each of the two extension years $18.125 million. With how fast the cap is growing, that is a great price. Of course, the team could also get creative and backload it so the second year is a bigger hit, or frontload it. The only contingency that Allen would likely ask for is that it would be all guaranteed.
After all of this the Chargers would have $25.1 million in cap space. The Chargers' projected draft pool is just over $13 million, giving the Chargers around $12 million to spend on free agents and an in-season budget.
That might not be enough to make a huge move, but it is enough to re-sign a key free agent (like Alohi Gilman) and bring in 2-3 more cheap, depth free agents. And if the team really needs more, it can convert more of Allen's base salary into future money.