Chargers Draft Trends: How Los Angeles Has Attacked the NFL Combine for Edge Rushers

The 2026 NFL scouting combine has arrived. The Los Angeles Chargers are in the midst of a significant offseason for the franchise. The team is traditionally active on the All-Star circuit as well as the combine.

So far, this off-season has brought changes to the team and coaching structure. Los Angeles has made a significant hire and investment on the offensive side of the ball by bringing in former Miami Dolphins head coach Mike McDaniel as offensive coordinator to transform and modernize the offense.

The Chargers enter the offseason third in the NFL in available cap space. The Chargers have a significant number of internal free agents to re-sign and have the seventh fewest rostered players heading into 2026.

Heading into the draft, Los Angeles got a surprise boost. The Chargers have only five picks in the 2026 draft after trading away their 5th and 7th round selections. However, in a surprise twist, it is now projected that they will be awarded a compensatory pick in the 6th round for losing cornerback Kristian Fulton to the Kansas City Chiefs.

The NFL Combine

The scouting combine is simply a measuring tool for NFL front offices and coaching staffs to use to identify players and make more informed decisions. At times, prospects will test and based on the results, good or bad, it may force teams to do a second pass or get a fresh pair of eyes on a prospect's film.

Edge rushers can be one of the trickier position groups to sort through. It is a position groups where elite traits are valuable and measurable but traits do not equal production and production on a stat sheet does not tell the whole story.

Good NFL scouts will know all the prospects in their assigned region and know details such as what assignments coaches were tasking players with on the field that may not be self-evident when watching film. For example, an edge rusher may look slow off the snap to analysts and observers at home, but he may be asked and trained to read run first before penetrating upfield. Simple explanations often explain why every year a handful of prospects will post significantly better testing results compared to what was expected.

One data point the Chargers do not stray from when it comes to edge rushers is arm length. Every team has its own appetite for risk when it comes to physical outliers at certain positions. Los Angeles has a front office comprised almost entirely of executives who rose through the ranks with the Baltimore Ravens under General Manager Ozzie Newsome. Examining the measurements of every modern edge rusher drafted by the Ravens and Chargers while Chargers General Manager Joe Hortiz was present reveals a philosophical belief, size matters.

Edge rusher measurements — Thomas Martinez

The Chargers front office may make an exception at some point, but it is clear that arm length for edge rushers matters to the evaluators. Combining the Ravens and Chargers draft classes shows that the edge rushers they draft average out at 33.38 inch arms and have only drafted two players with arms shorter than 32.75 inches

There are several edge rushers in this draft class with historically short arms including Miami's Rueben Bain and Texas A&M's Cashius Howell. Their outlier status may change how the Chargers assign draft value to them. When the weigh-in information and mesurement data begins to be recorded, look for the Chargers to be very aware of prospect arm length.

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