2026 LA Chargers Preview: Roster, Odds & Win Total

Welcome to the acclaimed podcast, the deep dive, featuring your esteemed hosts, Andy Monitor and Drew Dinsick, powered by Betspers. Welcome to the deep dive. Talking chargers next up in the AFC West, I haven't actually, I forgot to check the odds to see if they were sold third. I'm sorry, see this, there's still the third up, I eat the second choice. Broncos might have flipped him and I wouldn't be surprised because of the Tyler Biotis injury, which we're going to get into among, among other cursed chargers news. But this is a fun team to handicap because I don't think there was any other team that made, that had a head coat, challenge me if you disagree. I don't think there was another team that had a head coach stay in tact that got an upgrade at offensive coordinator more sincerely than the chargers. No, no, I don't, I don't think that's, there's not even a close second, right? No, there's like, I'm trying to think of somebody to let you know, you know, you can, you can look at this, it's funny. It certainly doesn't feel like Sean Manion is going to claim that crown from, from currently good, go ahead. The chiefs, this is Chris pricing. Chiefs plus 174 Broncos plus 180 Broncos have almost flipped to first, they're very close to flipping to first, probably because of our podcast, obviously. And then chargers are now third. Okay. Plus 205. A little bit of a later's remain fourth, a close fourth at 17 to 1. That's going to be a fun Calgary graph over the balance of the preseason. That's going to be like three awards, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's great. It's great. It's great. It's a girl's hair, three way of horse race all season. Awesome. Anyway, if C. West is going to be awesome this year, I'm excited for a lot of these games. And honestly, betting the C. West is going to come down to sequencing, schedule sequencing, market entry, as we will get into, we got into it with the Broncos, who start five of their first six as dogs. We're going to get into it today with the chargers who are double digit favorites from the first two games. And we're going to get into it with the chiefs and podcast number four in this division. But ultimately, I think the chargers were perceived as one of the biggest winners of the offseason because they retained a coach that everybody believes in in Jim Harbaugh. And they added an offensive coordinator and Mike McDaniel, who comes from the, of course, the Shanahan tree. And was able to make Tua look pretty spectacular for a couple of years there now. At least, at least for a little bit, you know, Tua was, that was a tough hang because of the injuries. And last year, you know, less year and a half of the injuries to the wide receiver and the kind of the starting to break down. And that is my only knock, my only knock on this guy doesn't have a plan B. He has an incredible fastball, doesn't have a change up. Like we, you kind of know what you're going to get. And when it's working and everyone's healthy, it's like, you can't stop it anyway. Hey, he's going to throw a bunch, he's going to throw all the running backs at you, he's going to move him around, he's going to have a ton of, you know, a ton of motion, a ton of guys just relying on yak. And when it works, it's, I mean, when it works, he dropped 70 on the Broncos. When it works, it works great, whenever it's healthy. Just didn't love what we saw when it's like, oh, hey, Tua is not good. And now a couple of your wider receivers are hurt. You can't, you can't seem to work your way out of this. I like, it's one of those two where it's like a double upgrade. I like him better as an OC than a head coach. And obviously we like him as the OC over, you know, we had their last year, the negative for the coaching stuff is we did lose mentor. I think a lot of people had a lot of respect for what he did. I will say, and I just, this is, this will be the conversation we have about this guy because we're going to, we'll get, we'll get into Mc, McDaniel plenty, but do you familiar with this O'Leary character? Oh, yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. A lot of thoughts. He was just, yeah, he was just on this team two years ago. He was, he was under mentor. He left to be the DC for a Mac team. I gotta go look it up now. Western Michigan. Yeah, that, this has all the, this is all the fingerprints of this car was long, it was, this was Harbaugh's long-term plan, which was he knew he was going to lose mentor and actually wanted, you know, O'Leary to get his feet wet in, you know, in a different environment. And I thought O'Leary acquitted himself like impossibly well. Yeah. In terms of taking over a dog shit defense and making them pretty good, it seemed like just looking at really good. So that was a very, very strong pulse. We'll find out. I mean, you've never known a guy because who's never really, you know, it's a little bit too, when we get to a guy that I don't know shit about really because it's like, hey, this isn't guy was in college and looking up like, no, he was on Harbaugh's staff. Like, which one of these is right? Oh, it's both. He left for a year and then you dig into what he did at Western Michigan, literally coordinated that defense using 2024, 2025, maybe even Chargers tape. He just, he installed Mentor's defense up there apparently. So it's not as if he went to college and started doing some other, you know, hey, we're running in different defense. Now he's going to come back and figure it out at the NFL level. Granted, it is a different game. Things are faster. Things are more complicated offences or tougher in the AFC West than they are in the Mac, I would suppose, but it was a, it was a good team. It was ninth in the FBS and scoring defense. They won the Mac Championship game. It was a good team and he's back. It's going to be, you know, just mentor light at worst, I think, and basically said, we're going to run the same kind of defense. We have a lot of the same guys back. So it's not going to be, you know, somebody having to come in and rebuild or learn a system. It should be fairly heavy continuity. You would hope. So I'm not as worried as I was when I'm like, I don't know what the hell this guy is. Yeah. Here's the thing, Andy. You know where the signal is? It's not even what he did at Western Michigan. It's the Harbour bottom back. Harbour, it's the Harbour hired him. Period. Yeah. Have you seen Harbour's list of defensive coordinator hires? It's not bad, I suppose. Yeah. When he is three years up at four years in San Francisco, he's Michigan higher was my dog. Yeah, it's my big dog. So there's no, there's no turds here. Like this is, this is an absolutely ridiculous run of defensive minds. We'll give him, yeah, we'll give him like we got him being good and to be good. So yeah, it's crazy because we're going to shit on Harbour about. Oh, sure. His some of his decisions. And by the way, like his, his hiring of offense according to just not as glorious. Really, I really loved Roman. He might have had one just kind of fall into his lap where it's like even he can't speak up. Yeah, I can just call it offense. And he doesn't, he doesn't, I don't think he wants to be a head coach. I don't think, I don't think, obviously, maybe it's different because of the situation. I don't know that he enjoyed being a head coach. He certainly didn't in the preseason last year. So might have just been a really fortuitous. Hey, there's a guy available. We're a desirable stop. We have a young quarterback. We have some pieces that he wants to see. And we need an offensive coordinator right now. So might have just kind of worked out for him to make the right hire there. And he adds funny too because Harbour is the ultimate case for this guy should be running your offense or excuse me, should be running your team. He should be in charge. He should be the voice that leads this team. Somebody else should be making the endgame. Just uninstallable at that point. You can, you can find a, nope, John or Jim. Yep. We go to the first one to the nerd for that one. Ted decision making. First check in the Army gym. 32 out of 32, buddy. All right. So the turnover of coaching, I'm going, I'm already at war as a mentor guy this year. I have coach of the year bets in pocket. I'm expecting Chris O'Leary to step in and do as well with this defense. I'm expecting Mike McDaniel to be an upgrade. A little bit of commentary on McDaniel. I thought his tenure in Miami was, it was pretty, like, it was somewhat predictable for a first time head coach who had a little bit of, you know, kind of offensive genius. Kingsbury. Kingsbury. Yeah. But just like offensive genius handed the clipboard and given God like weapons, like it was it was It was awesome. And you got a completely impossibly good efficiency out of Tua for the first couple years. My gut, and I don't have any confirmation in this, this is my gut, is that it all came apart for McDaniel and Miami because of Tua. And specifically because of the concussions, right? Like if there's one, playing quarterback is a cerebral exercise. And if you get, you have applesauce straining out of your house, if you get concussions at the point where your cognition is impaired, you're not able to be as effective of a quarterback. And I think when McDaniel got there, he had godlike weapons, he had, you know, capable quarterback play and he had brilliant scheme. And what I always kind of distinguished his scheme and what was so good for McDaniel was his ability to kind of, kind of craft efficient running out of thin air a lot of times. Just by using space. With whoever. Yeah, with whoever. Just, yeah. He always said engine running up, next man up, like next minute, next best running back in the NFL on the tape, on tape. And it was all just because of his way of using motion. He used motion to the point where it was like the league had to step in and change the rules. Like it was, it was a little too much motion, but yeah, I mean, he was using motion, he was using kind of manipulation of space to generate plus, you know, hugely efficient rushing attack. I think he still did it last year, even with the change of rules. And I think that, you know, if you have that in your bag of tricks, that's like what makes Ben Johnson special. That's a huge part of what makes Shanahan and McVey special is like if you can, if you have this like relatively high floor because your rushing attack is making the rest of the offense relatively easy, then it doesn't matter what the defensive system is going to be. Number one, they have to play more base. Number two, if they are playing more, you know, if they are playing more light box stuff and more coverage because they're worried about the trying to limit your explosives, then it's easier to matriculate the ball down the field if you're running it at eight yards of clips. So it's, it's kind of, it's kind of the shortcut to top five offense having that level of amazing rushing. And I think when the entire was announced that McDaniel was coming, it was literally like, oh, shit. Like if he gets a rushing attack for the chargers up to like top 10, top five level, just based on what he is asking them to do in terms of manipulating space and putting guys in position to, you know, utilize, utilize their physical gifts, then now all of a sudden you're making things easy for Justin Herbert who can attack every part of the field. And that was so like the like on paper that was like, this is the easiest bet on it that we've seen in a while. Since that has been announced, done a lot of soul searching about, are we expecting too much? Does Herbert have limitations? Are we going to see the same, you know, type of explosiveness without an elite set of skills? If you count the playoff game, which is a big F, because that's a big number. It was 60 sacks, scored three points in that game, like that losing, gosh, what was it? There was like 6,500 snaps across the five offensive line spots last year. Like 300 of them were guys who were on the team this year. And two of those are really highly touted, highly picked offensive lineman that you need to play. Like, that's where it could peel apart a little bit again. If it's, hey, you can't get your guard out there and you can't protect your quarterback. It's going to be a little harder. And that's where I think it is. Yeah. I come back to Earth a little bit, man, that, you know, it is exciting to see what he can do with Quentin John Standews. I know, but it's, it's not the same fit as like the, the tool, a lot of stuff, but it's just like, hey, you know, you know, you know, or Miami struggled a bunch with when he was coaching and running that offense in the red zone. Yeah. And some of that, some of that again was to it. But I think some of that is his scheme relies on the space and they never were great in the red zone. It's a big guy who, he's massive when it comes to contesting catches me a few good tight ends. You know, a couple guys on roster that I think can make catches in the red zone. That's where, that's another spot where I need McDaniel to improve and add to his game and then we can continue to just say, all right, he's, he's in the Shanahan McVay sphere. Because I caught some shit from a few people for saying he's overrated, which is a relative term, I guess. I don't think he's bad. I never said like, hey, this guy's shit and it's just not going to work out. It's just, we are blowing him right as a collective and that's because there's such a, there's such a shortage, I know, I know, and that's what I'm saying, just like relative to the hype. Let's, let's pump the brakes because there were, there were issues in Miami and he needs to, like, he needs to work pass at the game, the, the, the plan B, the red zone stuff. If that stuff improves, this is going to be a, this is, I get, I understand where you're coming from. Yeah, I know. I want to, I want to, you know, yeah, I don't hate McDaniel. You can only, there's, so only so many off seasons, can you slurp the same five guys and then in McDaniel and a new spot with a, a better quarterback was, was the darling of the cycle of, you know, what could, what could be, what might we see? And then, you know, my, I have enthusiasm, but it's tempered. I clearly recognize that the weapons that he has to work with in L.A.R. weaker than what he had when the offense in Miami was truly singing. Tyree Killow was one and one when he was at his peak. And the, there could be some, there could be some moments where Quentin Johnson is just running uncovered, 50 yards down the field. And Justin Herbert puts it on his hands and he doesn't call it that, hall of them, right? Don't, don't put that in your hand. Yeah, Cara, this, there's, there's, there's, there's potential for things not quite being up to snuff in terms of the weapons he's working with. And there's, yeah, there's, there's a, there's always, there's also the fact that the team is cursed, and everybody that is counted on to be healthy and available, particularly in the trenches, can't, can't be out there. It's funny to, we talk about the, this is what we're slurping because it's the excited off an exciting offensive coordinator hire of the prof season. I mean, I, I made a case for I love the Davis weld thing, but again, Davis Web is a super unknown, I'm, I'm above the market because I'm, I'm buying on it, but he has very little coaching experience and we just don't know, we even, we both even positive that it might be a, hey, I'm taking play calling back mid season because this isn't working out. And you, you know, you graduated college in, you know, 2018, buddy, you just shouldn't happen right now. You're too young. Yeah. But like, think about the other hires. Who else are we possibly excited about? Well, maybe Mike, you tell me, like Tommy Reece, Declan Doyle, Petsing, Flurry, Dable. Yeah, not, David Blah, like, they're just what, this is the enemy. Yeah. Who's, I guess the enemy a little bit, but that's kind of a re, a retread. Who else are you even excited about? Maybe Mike will floor a little bit. Yeah. I guess here's, here's a, here's, here's a critical question for you. OK. Would you have, would you have been willing to go out on a limb with your perceived pessimism or cooling, cooling take on Mike McDaniel if he was taking over as the Seattleist? I'd still would. No, you would. I was going to be like, oh, you would be so excited. Come on. No. Come on. I mean, to be fair, I'm still excited. Is it clear, this is an upgrade on like, like, 28 teams? Oh, of course. Yeah. I think, maybe McFae, Shanny, the other floor Ben and O'Donnell, O'Donnell, maybe, O'Donnell, I don't think is a slam dunk ahead of him. Yeah, that's fair. No, that's close. Like, there's like four or five guys where he's not an upgrade. I don't mind putting Peyton in this, in ahead of him just because of the, the length of time he's done it. I don't mind putting read ahead of him just as terms of offensive mind. Yeah. Sure, sure. Like, yeah, yeah. So, yeah, yeah, I mean, Liam Cohen, maybe, I would listen to the argument, but that, yeah, we're running out of ants here. Yeah, well, believe me, if the Ravens do what they can do and Declan Doyle kicks us this year, you're going to hear a lot of Declan Doyle praise. Declan Doyle. Declan Doyle. Yeah, I'm ready to, I'm ready to start carrying the flag. And Declan Doyle's going to be coaching the Eagles in two years, but the point is it was an exciting marriage and it really. did kind of steal the show of their entire offseason. They, the big changes for the chargers from a personal standpoint are really just getting alt and slater back. Alt, it sounds like we'll be back shortly. Slater is feeling significantly more certain. Yeah. The, the, the powers of B, who make decisions, Jim Horitz, who started Joe Horitz. Joe Horitz, I don't know if Hortes, Hortes. Yeah. For some reason, Joe Hortes is way off my radar as far as what, who, who he is as a decision maker. I just kind of assume this is a Jim Harbock, kind of, is, is ultimately the buck stops with him. But. Yeah. So the emphasis and what they did in the offseason was pretty obvious to me. We need to transition this offensive line into more effective players through free agency in the draft. And I don't know. I just don't know that I love the additions at guards. It doesn't sound like they for sure have their answers at guards in terms of who's going to absolutely do not be interior. It could be an abject disaster right now. So you need alt and slater to be 100% back in playing all 17 games. Otherwise, you have a definite issue up front because of the, and we'll get to the beatish, injury. It sounds like that's you for the year. Multiple ligaments is the, the early prognosis. Looks like he is going to miss and you're probably starting a rookie at center at this point. So let's go through some of the rest of the offseason. I mean, not much else to say about last year. 11 and six, second in the West made it the playoffs and bear some self scored three points. What's that? No, yeah. New England Greg Roman fired. McDaniel brought in Herbert, as I mentioned, shitload of sacks. Joe outplayed six games. Roshant Slater played significantly fewer than that. That's a problem. You got some stars though. You got some scars. Like good things happen. They're when James is still a star. Tully is definitely a star. Clill Mac was pretty good for being 35, I think, 34 at least. He's pretty old. Quentin Johnson wasn't terrible. You had some, you had some nice things go on, but yeah, the offensive line was an issue. Some of the interior second area was a problem and some of the linebacker plays a problem. So we did add some pieces. Not a banner free agency class, though, besides I think the beattish thing was a good move. And now it stinks because he's gone. You brought in Cole Strange from Miami, former Patriot as well. He hasn't been good anywhere. He stopped. So I don't love that. David and Joku for one year deal. He's just kind of in your stable. You have three tight ends that can all play. Devin Thompson was one of those where he was released from Arizona, I think. And then he said, hey, if we could use another nose tackle, another interior guy, I'll fight for him. He's big. He has a good run defense mark. You might not get much pass pro or much pass rush out of him, but if you need to stop the run and you need an NT to plug in in a 34, you could pull a whole lot worse. He's close to among the best in the NFL. I would say he's in the top 10, right? For Antise. I'd say like 10th, 12 somewhere in there. I haven't. There's not a lot of actually like an eight. It depends how you rate it. If you go strictly nose tackles, if you go all do all interior, fair, fair, fair. It's hard. You maybe shouldn't grade him against guys who are more of the, you know, the air and Donald style. I'm an interior. No, winner Williams, Queen and Williams, John Franklin Myers, all better than him. Jeffrey Simmons is kind of that air and Donald D type of player. So he's tough for Roy Robertson Harris and better than him. Jalen Carter and Chris Jones are more of the air and Donald style. That's hard to, it's not an average sweat. I would have sweat. I would take, I would take Tomlinson over sweat personally. Anyway, Charlie Kohler. Another tight end again. You still be a big old stable of tight ends at this point. We mentioned mentor gone to Baltimore as the head coach. Chris O'Leary, the previously discussed Western Michigan Bronco brought in. You lost few in what? Paramain Jefferson. Oh, Paramain and Jefferson resigned. Yeah. You were assigned a few of the defensive pieces. The Cluel Mack thing, he likes the, he liked the direction things you go and he says, I'll come back. The defense is effectively a run it back with Dolphin Tomlinson and Adam. These are the guys that started the majority of snaps for them last year. Then Dref class, you took the Miami other Miami edge piece, a key mezzador in the 22nd pick straight up going into the rush rotation. Like he is, he is going to be part of your pass rotation. Busy. Yeah. Little Busy. He's a fun one. If that's a good defense, maybe a fun DRO I bet. I know he's probably about 10 to one because he's a highly rated edge. Plus, he's also a a million years old. So he's got an NFL body. Yeah, he's got grandkids. You drafted some depth in the interior offensive line that'll sit behind Beattish at center, cross all that out, and Jake Slutter for the starting at center most likely. Slutter time, baby. You do not have a starting center. Brennan-Thompson, Mississippi State, a kind of a speed outside depth wide receiver, tackle depth behind all to Travis Burke from Memphis in the fourth round. Then some more defense and offensive line depth, safety from Arizona and Genesis Smith. You can use help in some of those spots because Derwin James doesn't actually play safety some of the times. He's kind of all over the place. He's more of a nickel guy at some points is how this how this amorphous defense tends to work. Nick Barrett, defensive tackle South Carolina. He's going to rotate through probably if he makes the squad in the interior. And then Logan Taylor and BC and Alex Harky from Oregon both interior offensive line depth, which again got a little thinner. So good thing you got that. Harbour runs back. You're three Mike McDaniel joins defense line Mike Elston. I think came with O'Leary double check that. I don't know if he was here still. I think he's a he's a O'Leary guy because they did want to do the one thing they said in the quotes I found from the defensive stuff. The one thing they want to do different than mentor was be wider and more aggressive on the fronts with the adrushers. And you wouldn't get yourself a first round adrusher. You have some good adrushers. So you can go to more of a wide nine and have these guys line up way outside like Bosa used to do a little bit of on in San Fran. Could be fun defense. Yeah for sure. Ortiz retained. Ortiz. Ortiz. It felt like the decision making on how to address the skill position room was informed by with a vision that Mike McDaniel has, which is they went like you said they got they have a loaded room of tight end and running backs and a bunch of flawed wide receivers. And I don't mean to like disparage guy like Vlad McConkey who's a fun new young player, but like he's pretty clearly limited. If he's getting CB1 attention from the other side, the limitations on all the other guys are pretty well known. Trey Harris is too slow. Quinn Johnson has center block hands and they're depth is questionable. So you know I'd kind of, it's, it's funny. It's funny and fun that we get to answer the question of what would Justin Herbert look like in a good offense this year or a good offense within a good offensive play collar. It's I still wonder what would Justin Herbert look like within elite wide receivers. He's throwing two because like it's kind of, it kind of feels like challenge doesn't feel, it could does feel like that. And it kind of feels like we're wasting a little bit of his talent because like I don't want to see him targeting running backs and Ted ends to you. Even if it's sufficient, even if we get it, the ball type of stuff in this offense is doing well and scoring. I'm going to be like, we can get an AMC. I'm on corksome, man. You know, even if it's not all Hampton, but if we can get an HN season out of Hampton, where it's just like, oh, we're just giving him the ball in space and letting him do things. And this is a fun offense. I guess I don't care how they get there. If I'm betting on them, if they get there. Yeah, I mean, it's a lot more fun with the White receiver one. We should put that on a shirt. Yeah, we should. And honestly, like, there are teams like the Patriots who have too many wide receivers. If I was, if I was Hortes, if I was Joe Hortes, I would be, I'd be making some calls to Foxboro to see if we couldn't pry a Kishan booty. If you were Joe Hortes, this would be a weird podcast because he's really biased. You'd be able to hide that your ratings would be much higher than mine. It would have been clever of me to pretend like I didn't know my own name though. I'm not a thousand percent sure I'm getting it right. That's how I see it. Okay. Before we get into ratings, we do like to thank circus sports and the circus sports. Yeah. It could very well be Ortiz with the H's sound. Ooh. Yeah. Soft H. Anyway. Ortiz. Why not just fill it that way? Ortiz is a very common last name. Very common. Anyway. Circus sports, a very common name in Las Vegas, Henderson, and Sparks, Nevada, as well as a few other states. But you do need to go to Nevada and sign up for this contest. If you have any questions on how to do that, how to acquire a proxy, or just, you know, how to put together a team. If you are trying to do something like that, hit us up. We can help you out. We'll be out there next Thursday, signing up for several entries into the survivor and the millions. I'm not doing a grand isomo this year. Got burnt last year. I'm kidding. I didn't know. I mean, I know some guys that made out pretty well in that stupid packers. Stupid packers. Honestly, we didn't do great in survivor because the stupid packers were rethinking our strategy. Probably going to, we're not going to win this year, but we're going to get deep and it's going to be fun. Yeah. I'm going to have a sweat at least. I want to have a sweat at least. I enjoyed the sweat last year with the millions. Hopefully we can do that again. And we're always excited to talk about the contest as the season goes on. So get out there, join up. If you have any questions, send us up. There's a link in the description to this podcast and this YouTube video. If you need to look at the rules or how to do it or anything that everything's on their website. If you, if you do need more details, so check that out and we'll move on to rating. Great experience. Super chargers, great song. Sandy. Yeah. Super chargers. Yeah. Um, do you think they have to move back to San Diego to break the curse? They absolutely do. Okay. But they have to resurrect the San Diego chicken. Okay. Uh, that, that was the Padres. That was the Padres. I know, but he was part of the, the, the San Diego chargers mascot was the Bolton. That was intense, intense, intense, he was known nightmare pelican, but that was one of the more aggressive, uh, uh, that was one of the more aggressive, it's up there with that cake baby, cake baby, cake baby, cake baby, and nightmare pelican. We're pretty, pretty, pretty, pretty. It's fun. All right. Um, Justin Herbert is a very talented quarterback. Uh, he is often injured, which makes it tough to kind of parse his data. Uh, I just kind of want to remind everybody that last year towards the end of the season and into his playoff appearance against the Patriots, which sucked, uh, he had broken his finger on his non throwing and, um, he was wearing a club on his non throwing hand. He was wearing a club. I had to google the pictures because I was like, wait a minute, was he really playing with the club he was, um, and I think that affected his performance a bit in 2024. He was dealing with high ankle sprain and planar fasciitis, uh, that started in week three, uh, and really got re aggravated a bunch during the season that affected him in 2023. Andy, I don't know if you remember this, he fractured bones on both of his hands, uh, and uh, didn't do great things for his performance, uh, 2022 rib cartilage fracture and a shoulder labrum tear, uh, he is an iron man, he plays through these injuries, it affects his performance, it's part of the data sample, just a, just know it, acknowledge it, um, and the fact that he is so frequently pounded into the ground because he's behind a, uh, an offensive line that shouldn't have quit their day jobs as plumbers and electricians, uh, is, is a huge part of the equation, uh, and that looks like it's going to be part of the equation this year. So I don't think you can realistically take the highlights that you see from his overall performance and use that to anchor an expected price going in, but, um, but I'm definitely, you know, still a believer, uh, that he can do it all and deserves, you know, at least top 10 consideration here, especially paired with Mike McDaniel. So I'm coming in with a number that's even higher than the Rams number here for QBOC at 7.5, what's a, you, uh, my hesitancy was the, the sacks and it's, it's a hard puzzle because on one hand, good quarterbacks can play behind a bad line, okay, and not get sacks 60 times, they can find their way out of, but part of that equation is they have an offensive coordinator that knows what they're doing that can kind of help them out with that, like, hey, he doesn't have any tackles. We should run a slightly different kind of offense. He had one of the slowest, um, you know, times to, from snap to throw, especially with that, you know, that bad offensive, like that's, I think part of the equation was Roman. So I don't know if I want to ding him too much, but at the same time, it's still a little bit. And he's not, I don't know if that he's ever, ever going to be 100% healthy, break them any bones, it should just hurt. So I'm, I'm kind of being very, very good, not quite a lead to, we'll see. And then I mean, most of my upgrade is my, Daniel, yeah, he looks healthy now, uh, and I think that is important, um, I have him rated, just for context, I have him rated below Pat Moms, which we'll get to next. I have him rated below, uh, Drake May, I'm just naming AFC teams, uh, I have him below Joe, I have him below Joey B, I have him below Lamar and Josh. But they're clustered. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. There's not that much separation. These are awesome. Awesome. Awesome quarterbacks, awesome quarterbacks. I'm going to put, I'm going to put Aaron in there too, because he's, he's reunited with his family. And I think Aaron who? Aaron, Aaron, uh, right, Aaron Rogers, Aaron Rogers, oh, I'm kidding, I'm, I'm excited that he talked to his family now. Yeah, that's a good, that's a good outcome. Happy for everyone involved. Um, yeah. So, uh, that's the biggest number for me of any of the numbers for the L.A. Chargers. And it's the most important number and coming up with a fair. So, uh, Chargers number for me is going to be good, um, but is it going to be better than that Broncos or the chiefs is really the question, uh, skill position has a huge part to play in this. Um, as I mentioned, I'm really, really cool on this wide receiver room. I like the tight end room. I like the running back room. I'm prepared to love the running back room. I'm prepared to love the tight end room. It's going to take a very, very consistent, positive, uh, signal into the first through the first half of the season for me with this wide receiver room to put the skill position group overall above a five. So I'm starting out with a 4.2 for skill with about the same, we, uh, every once in a while. We have the exact same number. And it's funny because I actually had nicer things to say about Quentin Johnson. I think he is a nice piece yet. His route running is excellent. Yeah, it's, uh, it's, uh, he's able to make contestant catches. He's, he's sometimes not able to make uncontested catches that was just a problem. Um, Lad Maconkey's good, not great. Um, it's nice to have a slot piece that can play like that. He has been great. We've seen good games from him. And then I just, it's, it's kind of a question mark at the running back room because it's Hampton's young and he grades fine, but the, the guys behind that, it'll be interesting to see how he uses them because much to the, she granted the fantasy football community. It sounds like it's going to be just mix it up hot hand. I do what I want kind of thing by McDaniel with the running back room. So it's, it's hard to actually map out a touch share for that and the same thing with the tight end room because like in Joku is a one, but I don't know that they're listing them that way. Uh, you know, Gatson's, Gatson is very good in his own sense. So, um, kind of a, kind of a weird, it was a weird one to, to rate for me and I think it does go up quickly if we see, uh, it's going to be on McDaniel again. It's going to be on like how, how are, how are we using the cocky, how are we using tray, how are we using QJ and how's the running back room shake out? This could quickly go above the 50th percentile, so, um, all right, I'm, it's going to take me a little more. I'm going to need to see more, especially because of the place such easy teams early on. If they're doing great, I'm not going to overreact. All right. The offensive line, uh, back when a lot of public, uh, you know, and you got this today. Yeah. Back when a lot of the public ratings came out, uh, hmm, the chargers were pretty consistently considered a top 10 offensive line, I think because the people were so excited about seeing the tackles back and healthy since that point in time, uh, the news and the clouds around Roshan Slaters come back have been very concerning. Um, and then it's worth reminding folks, Roshan Slaters injury was a patella tendon tear and rupture, excuse me, rupture and there are a handful of injuries where you just kinda. You just put a little star, and you're like, "There's a world where this," or I shouldn't say there's a world where this, but there's a non-zero chance that this truly does affect his performance, not just in the year one coming out of it, but he's never really the same player, and the fact that he's having issues now is concerning, and I think that in general the red flags, the voice in the back of my head is not kind of screaming, everything will be fine for Cedar. He may be available for week one. I'm going to need to see him perform at the same level we saw before the injury to say he is a slam dunk at your left tackle position. The biotic injury loss is brutal. The three players on the interior offensive line were already a bit of a question mark in terms of their contribution. It felt like Jake Slaughter was on track to take over the left guard position. Yeah, and now he's almost certainly backfilling your center position, which means we're back to question mark before the left guard. No matter how you grade these three in the interior, I think they're all minuses. So you're going minuses and inexperience now across the interior, which means if you're facing a team that can generate quick pressure, Herbert is going to have to have, you know, maybe you have the right tools in terms of running backs and tight ends to have a lot of quick, you know, quick ball out of his hand, get rid of the ball offense, but they're going to need it. And that's that's a concern. So yeah, 3.9. So what I said, 3.8. 3.8. So what you said, I'm going to 3.5. So I mean, you didn't say anything I wasn't going to say. They have been collecting other teams. High draft picks that didn't work out. They have Trevor penning on this roster too. Oh, shit. I thought maybe play last year for them. I thought maybe he would compete for the left guard spot too, but then it seemed like maybe it'd be Slotter's job. Now Slotter's definitely going to have to step in and center. But yeah, I don't I don't have a strong take on coyote. I was Sika. Okay. I know cold strange is dog water. And then we have the rookie center. And then really, really, really good tackles. But at the same time, alt or excuse me, Slater has missed a bunch of practices now. I mean, we're in the third week of camp. Some of it is, hey, it's a veteran rest day. It's like, is it? Because then there's, you know, it's lingering flare up is what we're thinking here. And when you miss five straight practices, you're sitting out and you had that eight. Yeah, eight. I had my old notes. It's up to eight. Yeah. This is this is an issue because as you mentioned, it's a bad injury. I have I had a partial tear of my patellar tendon, where I just dislocated my kneecap. And I didn't walk right. No. Well, yeah, I couldn't, I was, you know, crutches for months, fucking around with that. And then even six, six, six, eight months later, it just wasn't, your knee doesn't feel solid. Like, there's just a little bit of movement left in it. I don't know. Maybe it's better if you actually tear the whole damn thing and they replace it. But Jesus, yeah, it's a little worrisome. This is a further downgrade. If we lose, if we lose slater and have to go to, I don't even know who you have penciled in there. It might be trapeze upkins the third at that point. So we could probably, we could probably downgrade a little bit further. So to pitkins is missing practice too. Isaiah, Mr. Isaiah worldwide. I'm not putting penning in a tackle. Travis Burke did penning his past grip. Blocking grades last year were, actually, no, you know, Isaiah, I say a world. He was a, he was that UDFA that's he's out to. Yeah, he, he towards ACL in the, in the college football playoffs. He's, he's probably not playing until, I mean, there's anyway, like, we're, I hate to, I hate to speak this into existence. But October, the Chargers offensive line could be we were forced to move Joe all to left tackle. And we're starting for rookies. Right. Yeah. That's how this, I just said this could shake out. Has any team ever more rookies? Logan Taylor. I never started for rookies on the O one. Well, I don't, I don't know that you draft besides the Burke guy. I don't know that you have another tackle like heart. When a Burke bird slides up to right tackle, alt moves over to left. Slotter is your center. And then Logan Taylor now sparkier your guards. Yeah, that wouldn't be fun for youth. But all this. Hey, it's gonna be a fun offense. And that's no fun. You get a year where we're like, hey, we can't get sacked 60 times. Well, guess what he didn't? He got sacked 73 times. Well, I'll told, that's where we're going to run into. I'll told my expectations are you're dealing with a 58th percentile offense, which is good enough for 15th in the NFL. As we flip over to the defense Andy, I love the continuity here. The strength of the defense is their coverage from what I can tell. Darwin James is an absolute monster and a perfect kind of player for just elevating everyone around him in the secondary. Tarheed still and Elijah Moldin. I had really good coverage grades on for last year. Tony Jefferson was solid. Cam Hallert is solid. The fact that Cam Hallert is your weak link maybe is like kind of crazy good. Their depth is kind of good. And in general, like I'm again, not going to doubt the ability of a Jim Harbaugh higher to have his guys in position to succeed in the secondary. Decent chance that they, like you mentioned, I had that note too. They're going to potentially play more, you know, less, you know, kind of extra defensive backs on the field. Less fewer light boxes, I guess, is a fair way to say that. And that should help the run stop. That should help the past rush. So I'm going to have higher numbers than what we saw from this unit last year in those two. I, again, I like Dalvin Thomas. And as a run defender in the middle, next to Tarheed Tartt, it's going to be very tough to run on the interior against this team. I have a great coverage grade for linebacker Diane Henley. Colliel Mack is still an absolute monster. Tully, T, pull low to is a little overrated, but maybe a little overrated as a past rusher, but again, you have a keen mezzador as an off-speed pitch there. So I have this grading out as the seventh best defense from a personnel and very balanced 5.7 for me for run stop 5.8 for past rush and 6.1 for coverage. Yeah, Tully, pull low. Tully, pull low to get say a lot of love because of the number of sacks. And that sometimes that's a, it's tough to, you know, it's like when a cornerback is in the right place at the right time, they still have to be a good cornerback to get interceptions, but sometimes it's like, hey, this isn't the best cornerback in the league. He just has eight interceptions kind of the same thing. Tully, pull low to is very good, but he put up some, he put up some sick numbers and he's actually in a bit of a, he's waiting, I think he's, while he's going to hold out, he didn't hold out. He participated in practice, so the holdout risk has gone. I did want to mention that Tarheep still is dealing with something minor where he's working through it kind of. I didn't see that. Yeah, it doesn't seem like it's major. He is, he missed some practice and then he returned in a limited fashion and he's just starting outside corner. So keep an eye on that. If that lingers into the season, obviously, the major injury is still, you know, Slater and Beaudish, but I had Quentin Johnson get banged up in the joint practice. Seems like he's okay. Still seems like he's working his way back and then that was kind of it. The Lad Mccocchi ham strength, where the summer's fine. And Joel, it seems fine after, I was, I was, I was an ankle, that was an ankle, that's the, it wasn't the same way. It's like, you put a star next to the Slater to monitor, you put a check next to all, but yeah, all should be, all should be just fine. So real quick, my defensive numbers for the L.A. Chargers are a tab I just closed. So we're going to, I got you covered. How about that? Yes, actually, that would be nice. My run's up a little lower than yours. And I do like T.R. Tart. I'd like, I like Tom Emson added, but I don't have very good grades on the, at the linebacker level. Henley didn't grade well to, to Tully, who's called Tully, is not great against Serrani's kind of a one-trick pony pass rusher. So it's a little bit of average, I'm a 4.5 there. Pass rusher, I'm at a five. That can go up depending on if Max still has it, if Mesodor steps in and actually contributes right away off the jump. I think I should probably be a little higher. You are, I'm at a five. And then coverage, I'm at a seven. I'm higher than you. - Yeah, it's just good. - That's actually a good confirmation for me. I wanted to go a little higher and I turned it down to 6.1 just 'cause I was nervous that the scheme was going to affect it a little. - I mean, like, Cam Hart bit of a problem at times. Like he's soft on the outside there, but still is very good. James is very good. Molden's tough at times and free safety, but for the most part, it's a good scheme. And it can be a very high end coverage unit, especially if we continue with heavy zone. It sounds like again, continuity, continuity, continuity, O'Leary, if it just turns into mentor continued, I think we're going to be fine. We're close on special teams and we're pretty close in our overall ratings. I have it as a 54th percentile team. You have it as a 55th. - Yeah, plus 1.3 for you, plus 2.4 for me. Worth noting on coaching, we are far apart. I find Jim Harbaugh's repellence to making the correct decision on 4th down, unforgettable. Everything else he does seems to be quite excellent, but I actually, you know what, you want a positive spin zone on this, Andy? His 4th down decision making in 2025 was worst in the NFL. It was less worse than 2024. So he's trending in the correct direction, right? His 2024, he was last with like a bullet and left so much wind probability on the table. It was almost unforgettable. 2025, he was still last, but it wasn't quite as bad. So good, hopefully he's trending in the right direction. And you know what else, if you have a phenomenally good, you know, efficient rushing attack, and actually I'm surprised this didn't come up in your, in your McDaniel takedown or takedown defense. McDaniel does suck and short yardage for some reason. I have no idea why. - He needs space, he needs space. - But even like 4th and 1/4, you know, 4th and 1/4 and 2/3 and 2 at the 50. Like for some reason they struggle and I don't understand why. Anyway, yeah, so that's the one, the one clear and obvious weakness. - I keep playing, I do keep playing with how I rate coaching and I'm struggling with it and I shouldn't waste so much time on it 'cause it's such a small percentage of it. And even the guys who are the worst in 4th down are costing their team like six points over the course of a season, you know, like it is, but it depends where those six points happen if they, you know, if they all happen in games they lost by one. And, you know, you're gonna, you're gonna be well below your Pythag and you might miss out on a better playoff spot at that point because of it. - It's fair point. The schedule for the chargers has some problems. We got some problems. The opening, yeah, the opening two games. My guess, by the way, is that the Raiders probably lose to the dolphins in week one and that helps accelerate the Fernanda Mendoza timeline. And then that week two game is gonna be chargers in the 10 to 10 and a half point favorite zone. So I think you're opening week one, week two, at home as 10 point plus fives. Then boy, oh boy, are we gonna test this team? This stretch from week three to week eight is among the more heinous stretches of any team in any schedule. If you wanna add nine and 10 attack that onto that, like we are, this they are going to war here. They are, and you know what's funny about this? Is it bouncing around Buffalo, week three, elite quarterback, good luck. Seattle week four, elite defense, good luck. Denver week five, elite defense, good luck. Kansas City week six, elite quarterback, good luck. Out of the buy Los Angeles Rams, elite quarterback and elite defense, good luck. Week nine, elite defense and Houston, good luck. Week 10, potentially, elite defense, and elite quarterback, good luck. Look at all the pink and so many of the teams are coming off just today as well. All those teams are coming off by or a big rest advantage. They are crazy. Hate fuck the jets. Free, just like, finally, you play a bad team. Oh my goodness gracious. Assuming that there are still healthy bodies on the chargers come November 22nd. I think that's probably the bet on point. But even then, like, New England Tampa is not a lovely back to back. I hope so. Jets Vegas, I was in there and then a really tough losing scratch. Yeah, I can't see Denver. Denver to close the season. I gotta tell you man, it's not great for, oh, it's a standard team. There they are. If this, if this was a fully healthy squad, offensive line, fully healthy. If they had made an addition at wide receiver and we were sitting here saying man, like all of the enthusiasm and excitement for the chargers is warranted. Even looking at this schedule, I would be like, we gotta pump the brakes, buddy. Like this could definitely go sideways. They're either going to be like perceived as well, well below what we thought they were preseason. If they're losing games to Buffalo Seattle Denver, Casey, right? Like if they, how many of those games, like, again, realistically, you probably lose two or three of Buffalo Seattle Denver, Casey, which means you are three and three or two and four, right? Or I guess you're four and two or three and three at the buy. You probably lose that game to the rounds. Maybe buy, maybe like Miles Garrett up against this offensive line does not feel fair. - And what if Aaron Donald's back? - Aaron Donald, the Miles Garrett. - It's good luck. - It's good luck. - Good luck. So like at that point, there's for sure a market correction where the chargers are like probably rated below their fair. And so it's that that point is going to be just picking your spots to try to bet on them when you can count on their relatively well-coached defense and high for rushing attack to kind of get them some wins against maybe some of the closer calls on their schedule like Houston, New England, Tampa, right? Same friend. So there's definitely in my mind scope for catching the chargers as small dogs in some of those games if the market over reacts and they're not like one and a half point favorites against Houston, if they're like two point dogs there. If they're like dogs against New England, dogs against Tampa, potentially dogs against San Francisco like that kind of interest me as far as when you would want to buy low on these guys. But the way that the schedule is sequenced in disadvantages on here to me looks like they've kind of been pumped that they're not going to make the playoffs this year. - Two of their road games out of all of them are indoors, the rest are outdoors, that's an indoor team. One of their road games is just in their home stadium, that, yeah, that's true, that happens every once in a while. We get a chance to skate. - It's the lowest home field advantage in all of, in all sports chargers hosting their amps, yeah. Three trips east, Miami, Tampa, Baltimore, in the second half of the schedule. You got to go to Buffalo East or early, followed by at Seattle, that's not a lovely back to back travel spot. Nothing about this sequence things to me, feels like it is leaving the door open for a surprise. We are winning the West, we are getting a one seed. - If they're the seventh seed, I'd have, not a big probability, but there's a distinct probability they're the seventh seed and the team that wins the division is the second. So there's a distinct possibility they play at Denver's two straight weeks. - Ooh, that's, I think, I think, it's kind of fun, just because of the matchup, but gotta hate when that happens. - It's so dumb, it's so dumb. - It makes the, it makes the week eight games such a, such a, it just cucks that, it's like they lose this game. They got to come right back here again, Jim. (laughing) - Yeah, Denver has locked in the two. The chargers are playing their way to come back next week. So they're gonna have to leave all the good plays on the field today. - Can you leave the equipment here? - Yeah. - Just get rest and come back to that. - You are, yeah, just stay acclimated to the altitude. - Oh, I would definitely just go to, I'd go to Air Force and hang out for a week. - Sure. All right, man. I think honestly, the schedule has just come, I was thrown. - Scared? any and all cold water on trying to get any kind of preseason features on these guys. If you are going to be a smart ass trader, and you're going to grab some chargers west now and hope that they win their first two games in Denver, you know, Denver and KC will one of those teams will lose. If the other team that wins then loses week two, you could have, you know, a two and a lead on the division heading into week three and sell that position maybe for a couple cents, but I'm not even remotely considering that. No. I don't want to extend this too far because we've already got an hour, but if the chargers don't make the playoffs this year, like they're expected to take a step forward. Mike McDaniel joining the crew expected to take a step forward. They could put up great efficient statistics, be the top 10 DVOA type of team on both sides of the ball. We wouldn't be surprised by that. And still be 98 and Mr. playoffs and a very, very competitive AFC. Do you agree with that? Yeah. There's a lot of tough teams. Is there any is there then and in my mind, there's not enough fan pressure that people are going to really turn on Harbaugh on McDaniel on Herbert. If that's the outcome of the season, does that sound right to you? There's no fans who's going to do that, right? Like there's the idea of we got this, this just isn't working, right? Like they're not going to blow it up, right? This is setting up as a decent bet on team for 2027. Yeah. If you want to get ahead of it like that, I had to go look up Mezzadour quick. Mezzadour is 14 to one defensive review of the year. Just thinking of ways to bet on this team. I wish that were a little bigger. I kind of want to see what his his role is, but I was like a like a past rusher. Hell yeah. Past rusher this year. Yeah. All right. We went over. That was the fun one. Kill it. Go talk to some chiefs. Go. Go. Go. Go. Go ahead. Maybe next year's Charger. Fans. Fan. Charger's fan. That one Asian lady. That one Asian lady. That one Asian lady. That one Asian lady. She's a Viking fan apparently.