The 2026 Chargers may end up going down as one of the worst teams in franchise history and there is plenty of blame to go around. Most of the blame should fall on the shoulders of general manager Joe Hortiz, who could have kept a lot of the Chargers' issues from happening in the first place.
Fans may point to hiring Mike McDaniel as the nail in Hortiz's coffin given how poorly the fit has been this season. As bad as it has been, that's not even a fireable offense. The Chargers hired one of the top offensive minds available and it just hasn't worked. Hindsight is always 20/20, and this is one that we can't blame Hortiz for.
We can, however, blame Hortiz for the laundry list of other mistakes he has made as Chargers GM. While we can nitpick just about every decision that has been made, there are five glaring mistakes from the last eight months that are fireable offenses.
1. Not investing in the interior offensive line
The Chargers had one of the worst offensive lines in modern football history last season. Despite the front office's best efforts to convince us that it was an offseason priority, the Chargers didn't do enough to bolster the interior offensive line over the offseason.
Los Angeles made three additions to the interior offensive line: a bust of a first-round pick who has struggled everywhere he plays in Cole Strange, a center who was just fell into their lap because he was suddenly released by his old team in Tyler Biadasz, and a center prospect who was overdrafted in the second round to play a position he has never played before in Jake Slaughter.
It's not Hortiz's fault that Biadasz was hurt in training camp but we can't just assume Biadasz would've been this spectacular player for the Bolts if he was healthy. After all, the Commanders literally cut him despite having a bad offensive line themselves when they didn't need to. All those fans assuming Biadasz would've been great are the same ones who have been proven wrong by Strange and Slaughter's poor play.
Elgton Jenkins was a no-brainer. Re-signing Zion Johnson made sense. Instead, the Chargers nickle-and-dimed the interior offensive line hoping that healthy tackles would save it. Now the tackles are hurt and the offensive line looks worse than it did a year ago.
2. Completely ignoring the wide receiver position
Hortiz told reporters last offseason that the Chargers wanted Keenan Allen back. He clearly lied. Allen remained unsigned for most of the offseason before signing a one-year deal to play with the Indianapolis Colts. Now, the Chargers are stuck wishing they had Justin Herbert's biggest outlet back on the roster.
It's not just Allen, though. The Chargers literally did nothing to improve the wide receiver position this offseason. The lone addition was a speedy, undersized fourth-round pick in Brenen Thompson who was always going to be stuck as a gadget player. And what do you know, despite the injuries to the Chargers, Thompson has all of one catch for 13 yards.
Instead of adding to the wide receiver room, the Bolts doubled down on the draft bust that this front office didn't even select by picking up Quentin Johnston's fifth-year rookie option. Herbert is stuck throwing to mediocrity when it didn't have to be this way.
3. Not making any defensive additions in free agency
The Chargers lost their defensive coordinator and have an older defense. So what did Joe Hortiz do? Completely ignore the defensive side of the ball in free agency. The Chargers did draft Akheem Mesidor in the first round to be fair, but he was simply replacing Odafe Oweh and is older than Tuli Tuipulotu (more on him later).
Defensively, the Chargers have actually held up this season despite a bad start against the Arizona Cardinals and Las Vegas Raiders. But there have been some pretty damning moments stemming directly from Hortiz's mistakes. Undrafted rookie corner Rodney Shelley has made several key mistakes in big moments. Why? He is forced into playing time because the Chargers added zero cornerbacks this offseason.
The 2026 defense isn't that bad. But with an aging core and no real depth, Hortiz has set the Chargers up terribly in the long run on the defensive side of the football.
4. Not signing Tuli Tuipulotu's extension
Tuli Tuipulotu was the best defensive player on the Chargers last season and at only 24 years old was due for a well-deserved payday via an extension this offseason. So what did Hortiz and the Chargers do? They shortchanged their young edge rusher, who is now playing on the last season of his rookie deal with no extension in place.
Tuipulotu hasn't had a great season but this doesn't justify Hortiz's cheapness. The Chargers are taking an unnecessary risk of allowing Tuipulotu to hit free agency with no deal in place, making him more expensive and a bigger flight risk as a result.
But Hortiz probably doesn't care! He might already be salivating at the 2028 third-round compensatory pick he would get from Tuipulotu leaving in free agency. Because that is how Hortiz runs the team: for future mid-round picks instead of building a sustainable winner on the field.
Not getting Tuipulotu's extension done is malpractice. If Hortiz and the Chargers front office don't believe in him long-term they should do him a favor and just trade him at the deadline.
5. Giving Derwin James an extension
This might be unpopular, but the Derwin James extension was bad. James is a great player and is one of my all-time favorite Chargers; it doesn't change the fact that he has been injury-prone throughout his career and is now on the wrong side of 30. This is a classic case of paying someone for past performance, which is made worse by the team's cheapness with Tuipulotu.
The Chargers can get out of James' contract after the 2027 season with a manageable $6 million dead cap hit in 2028. While that is manageable, it's never a good sign when we are already looking ahead at dead cap hits in two years on an extension that was just signed.
Hortiz and the Chargers already don't like to spend money. Committing $20.5 million in cap space to a 31-year-old safety in 2027 will probably make them cut costs elsewhere. As much as we all like James, it's a bad deal.
Add us as a preferred source on Google