Chargers Seem More Worried About PR Than Trades, Wins Right Now

The Chargers are sending a message, all right.

Jim Harbaugh | IMAGN IMAGES via Reuters Connect

While trying to send the proper messages to drive narratives, the Los Angeles Chargers are managing to send all the wrong messages. 

The fact “messaging” was a theme at all coming from the team and reporters ahead of the NFL trade deadline was pretty telling. Word was, they wanted to hang onto players like Khalil Mack because they didn’t want to send the wrong “message” to the locker room or fans. 

But the Chargers then turned around and sent a weird “message” anyway, trading a younger, popular player like Daiyan Henley…to the AFC West rival Denver Broncos. 

Weird, and yet it got stranger: The trade fell apart and the latest “message” from the Chargers is just more odd PR work from an 0-8 club. 

Chargers’ trade collapses and so does the message 

Joe Hortiz | IMAGN IMAGES via Reuters Connect

According to ESPN’s Adam Schefter, the Henley trade fell apart due to confidence the Broncos had with his knee after a physical. The two sides discussed different trade packages to make it work, it seems, then called the whole thing off. 

Schefter’s colleague, Ian Rapoport, added this borderline ridiculousness: “Part of the reason was because the Chargers never really wanted to trade Daiyan Henley. They got an offer from the Broncos they couldn’t refuse, so they took it."

Hear that, folks? The Chargers didn’t actually want to trade the player they traded, but only after the trade fell through and the player came back. 

By the way, the can’t-miss trade compensation was… a fourth-round pick and a 2028 fifth-round pick. 

Look, this little nugget from Rapoport was probably the Chargers trying to be nice about this, or even Henley’s agent trying to smooth things over as he goes from a 7-2 locker room back to an 0-8 one. The team that traded him away didn’t want him and it’s pretty clear contract negotiation talks hadn’t worked out, so he’ll be a free agent soon anyway. 

But this is just one of those little things to throw on the Chargers pile, which happens to be on fire right now. The Chargers seem misguided, more laser-focused on PR and messaging than anything else. 

Obviously, that’s not 100 percent the case. But it all adds up to a team that feels unfocused and doesn’t know what direction it wants to really go in, which is summed up pretty well by the winless record and move-less trade deadline. 

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