Why Did Chargers Leave Out 1 Critical Name When Talking Untradeable Players?

Honest mistake or a surprising sign of things to come from the Chargers?

Joe Hortiz | IMAGN IMAGES via Reuters Connect

While trying to control the messaging around a lost season and a botched NFL trade deadline, the Los Angeles Chargers made some pretty interesting comments that might shine a light on where things go from here. 

Granted, comments from players and reporting suggests the Chargers have lost the locker room. Pounding the table for the core group of players, then trading one of them in a panic to a rival at a deadline, only to botch the trade and get that player back, tends to do that to a team. 

But while addressing these happenings over the last week or so, Chargers general manager Joe Hortiz made a noteworthy comment, where what he didn’t say seemed to be pretty notable. 

Chargers’ trade deadline comments hint at future?

Tuli Tuipulotu | IMAGN IMAGES via Reuters Connect

Endless reporting and common sense said the Chargers were never going to trade players like quarterback Justin Herbert and wide receiver Ladd McConkey. 

But other recognizable names were quite a bit more debatable. This week,Hortiz made sure to address the “core” group of players who entered the trade deadline as untouchable. 

An excerpt from The Athletic’s Noah Furtado hits on this point: “He offered his list of hard noes by name. Quarterback Justin Herbert. Wide receiver Ladd McConkey. Tackle Joe Alt. Safety Derwin James. Cornerback Tarheeb Still. He stopped there, but perhaps he could have continued.”

Really astute onlookers will notice a missing name: Tuli Tuipulotu. 

We’re not going to outright claim this is a sign of things to come for the Chargers. But Hortiz rattling off core players and omitting a 24-year-old pass-rusher with 29 sacks in 58 games due a major contract extension feels like it could be a big deal. 

And hey, maybe not. Lots of factors went into the list of names and not everyone was going to get included. But there’s a smudge of deja vu here. Hortiz, after all, traded for Odafe Oweh, watched him break out at the age of 26 and refused to pay him market rate last offseason and then compensated by using a first-round pick on an “older” prospect like Akheem Mesidor to attempt to immediately fill the production gap. 

In other words, misguided bargain hunting that burned unnecessary draft capital. Who is to say the same doesn’t happen again? There have already been rumblings that the Chargers and Tuipulotu talked extension and it didn’t work out. 

There are other future factors at play, like franchise tags. But scanning the Chargers’ roster, Tuipulotu is 100 percent a building block who should be a hard-no as a trade candidate, or at least mentioned as such. 

Not this time with Hortiz though, it seems. 

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