Just months after being hired the new LA Chargers front office made one of the most unpopular decisions in recent franchise history: trading Keenan Allen. Allen was coming off the best year of his career in 2023 and was undoubtedly the biggest fan favorite on the entire roster.
The Chargers needed to create salary cap space and after Khalil Mack and Joey Bosa both agreed to take pay cuts as part of contract restructures, the Chargers had no choice but to trade Allen. Still, it did not make trading one of the franchise's best-ever receivers for a fourth-round pick any less painful.
Two games into the 2024 campaign and the Chargers' decision to trade Allen is less controversial. In fact, while there is still an entire season ahead of us, the Chargers have been justified thus far in trading Allen when they did.
Chargers trading Keenan Allen to Bears looks smarter now than it did before
Allen has not gotten off to a hot start for the Bears this season. In Week 1, the star wide receiver caught just four passes for 29 yards. This performance came off the heels of weight concerns about Allen, and it did not help much that he also dropped Caleb Williams' first-career touchdown pass in the process.
Speaking of heels, Allen was inactive in the Bears' second game of the season against the Houston Texans because of a heel injury. At 32 years old, there is real concern in Chicago that Allen is past is prime and that his injuries may stack up as a result.
Overall, however, the Chargers choosing Bosa over Allen is in line with the identity of the team. Through two games the Chargers have been a smash-mouth, physical football team that wins games with strong defensive play and a productive run game.
It makes much more sense to keep Bosa around over Allen given the identity of the team. Long-term, the Chargers do need a franchise wideout who can tilt the field if the team is going to win the Super Bowl. Pretty much every Super Bowl-winning team in recent history had at least one elite pass-catching weapon, as it is an imperative part of the Super Bowl formula.
However, Allen was never going to be that long-term answer. In the best-case scenario, Allen had 2-3 more years of elite play in him and that is thinking optimistically. In reality, the Chargers would have just been making a one-year commitment to Allen, just like they are making a one-year commitment to the veteran Mack.
And with that one-year window point of view, it is clear how choosing to lean into an elite pass rush made more sense for this team than keeping a veteran receiver around. It might result in uglier games but as long as the Chargers are winning nobody is going to care how it looks.