Tom Telesco blamed for poor Chargers defense

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Tom Telesco blamed for poor Chargers defense

Late Thursday morning, Los Angeles Chargers general manager Tom Telesco held his season-ending press conference. As he always does, he mostly kept things close to the chest, but he painted a rather gloomy picture of how the defensive unit fared this season in Brandon Staley’s first season. He took ownership of the poor defensive performance that didn’t live up to the expectations he (along with all of us) had for that side of the ball. Shippers have a large number of resources to devote to changing this issue, and as Telesco put it: “updating our staff”.

As you may recall, there was a similar thought process expressed by Telesco about the offensive line after the 2020 season. What followed was a complete overhaul of the unit. After adding Corey Linsley, Matt Feiler and Oday Aboushi (who should be re-signed this year), Rashawn Slater and Brenden Jaimes. Similar to Telesco, Staley said repairing the defense (and especially the defensive line) will be front and center this time around and I expect them to put their money where their mouths are, just like they did last year with the offensive line.

Now that they’ve acknowledged the problem, what does it actually mean? Let’s dive into a few ways forward.

Add competition to the defensive line room

The state of the Chargers defensive line room is as follows: Former first-round pick Jerry Tillery is under contract, along with former undrafted free agents Breiden Fehoko and Joe Gaziano. Linval Joseph, Justin Jones and Christian Covington are all expected to enter free agency. I would be surprised if Joseph came back to his age and with the way he fell in the second half of the season. Covington was fine as a first pickup after June, but didn’t do enough to earn another contract. I think they will keep Jones but I wouldn’t be surprised if he looked for another contract elsewhere.

Even if they bring Jones back, they should still be looking to bring in at least two quality players through free agency to push for starting spots. Sebastian Joseph-Day and Akiem Hicks have been frequently connected to the team due to their time with Staley, but they probably can’t afford to bring them both in. Other options I would consider are Austin Johnson, BJ Hill, DJ Jones and William Gholston.

After ideally signing two quality veterans, the team should look to recruit another corps to compete for a rotation spot – ideally not in the first round. Georgia’s Devonte Wyatt, Alabama’s Phidarian Mathis or Ohio State’s Haskell Garrett could be options for Day 2 there. The Chargers didn’t do a good enough job of adding quality depth behind their starting defensive line last year and it showed. They can’t make the same mistake this year and from now on it’s the highest priority of the offseason.

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