Chargers Odafe Oweh trade grades: Joe Hortiz smart to exploit Ravens’ fire sale

The Los Angeles Chargers want to win now. They started 3-0, with every victory over the AFC West, yet have dropped two in a row while the offensive line combusts and the Khalil Mack-less defense implodes.

Chargers general manager Joe Hortiz didn’t need to look far for help, though. His lengthy past connections to the Baltimore Ravens guaranteed it.

There, Hortiz surely saw a Ravens team effectively (soft) calling it a season. Baltimore is 1-4 and was more than happy to trade Hortiz and the Chargers pass-rusher Odafe Oweh, their best pass-rusher, when their own best pass-rusher, Nnamdi Madubuike, is already on injured reserve.

In Oweh, the Chargers get a 26-year-old former first-rounder on his fifth-year option looking to make a name for himself. On paper, it should send a jolt to a Chargers pass-rushing room in serious need of help.

Tuli Tuipulotu, the team’s lowest-graded player at PFF in the loss to Washington last week, has 27 pressures through five games. Bud Dupree has seven. Oweh has 12 on a 1-4 team, never mind the 10-sack season he put up last year.

Alohi Gilman, the only player sacrificed in the trade, was expendable. The emergence of Tony Jefferson and Derwin James’ flexibility meant the Chargers had an excess of talent at the position, counterbalanced by the miserable edge-rushing situation.

Possible outcomes matter, right? Worst-case scenario, Oweh underwhelms and doesn’t earn a major contract extension next offseason while the defense struggles. That would stink, but the cost was a back-end pick swap and a backup safety.

The upside? A serious boost to the defense right now that could get amplified by the eventual return of Mack. Plus, a possible contract extension or tag in the offseason that keeps a former first-rounder in town as a core piece…all for the price of a fifth-round pick and a backup safety.

It’s a win all around for Hortiz and the Chargers, who took the measured approach, called up familiar folks and took advantage of a sale. The only question now?

Whether they’ll try to do the same along the offensive line and at running back, too.

Grade: A

Baltimore Ravens linebacker Odafe Oweh — Tommy Gilligan-Imagn Images

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