Chargers stand pat at NFL’s trade deadline

The Chargers are seemingly content with their roster as they pass on making any moves before the NFL’s trade deadline.

This year’s NFL trade deadline has come and gone with the Chargers once again refusing to be active participants. With this season already falling short of expectations, it seemed like as any good time as ever to make a move and commit to a direction for the franchise, whether that’s to signal a re-tooling or continue pushing to contend in 2023.

So which one do the Chargers seem to be leaning towards more based on their lack of action at the deadline?

If I had to guess, I’d say they’re still in the mindset that this is a year with high expectations that they’re still going to try and meet. While making a trade for help in that regard sounds like the right thing to do, the front office likely doesn’t want to mortgage their future if this could possibly be the final year of Tom Telesco and Brandon Staley at the helm. They’ve always cherished their draft picks and I can’t imagine them feeling confident enough to hire a worthy coach if he’s going to be handicapped by a lack of draft capital to begin their tenure.

One of the biggest positions of need that the Chargers have continued to pass on at every opportunity to fix it has been a tight end with the ability to impact the run game as a blocker. The Chargers chose not to use any of their seven picks earlier this year on a player and have now passed on trading for one near the midpoint of the season.

The lack of a consistent run game has been an achilles heel for the Chargers for close to two seasons now and it’s played a role in preventing them from closing out games in the second half when they’ve built comfortable leads. Maybe the Jacksonville game would have been different had the Chargers been able to waste more time off the clock. Maybe they’d have an additional win or two this season had they been able to play keep-away a little longer from their opponents.

Unfortunately it’s all hindsight now.

With no more trades this season, the Chargers will attempt to finish their final 10 games with enough momentum to propel them into the playoffs for the second consecutive season. If they don’t, well maybe we’ll be learning about a new front office’s tendencies at this time a year from now.