NFL Trade Rumors Feel Like More Damage Control from a Lost Chargers Organization

The Chargers' attempts to control the narratives are exposing the organization, to put it nicely.

Jim Harbaugh | IMAGN IMAGES via Reuters Connect

The Los Angeles Chargers are completely lost and it impressively doesn't have anything to do with the 0-8 record. 

By now, everybody knows about the Chargers’ botched NFL trade deadline deal with the Denver Broncos. 

What they might not know is the Chargers’ ridiculous damage control messaging aimed at good PR around the move. They might also not know about how this debacle has started to officially help lose the locker room completely.

And somehow, keeps getting worse. More and more reporting keeps coming out about the deadline disaster, and more and more of it keeps feeling like PR efforts put out by a team that can’t win off the field, either. 

NFL trade rumors add to Chargers chaos

Los Angeles Chargers general manager Joe Hortiz (left) and assistant general manager Chad Alexander | IMAGN IMAGES via Reuters Connect

The first set of buzz pushed to the spin cycle presumably by the Chargers suggested that they never actually wanted to trade Daiyan Henley anyway. But the addition of a 2028 fifth-round pick alongside a fourth-round pick was basically a “godfather” offer they couldn’t refuse. 

Hold the laughter, folks. 

Now, new reporting from The Athletic’s Jonathan Jones goes as far as suggesting this might’ve been some sort of master plan by the Chargers to get a few draft picks and then re-sign Henley next offseason. 

“After considerable back-and-forth, the Broncos added a 2028 fifth-round pick to get it over the finish line,” Jones wrote. “The Chargers dealt their young, well-liked team captain to Denver with a hope that they could actually re-sign him come March. Being able to get two mid-round picks for Henley only to lose him for half of a lost season would be a coup for the team.”

It sounds more WWE than NFL. The Chargers were going to throw a key core piece of the roster to a division rival to help them compete in the playoffs, then attempt to re-sign him in free agency. 

And the Broncos, after coughing up two draft assets for Henley, were going to be happy if he played well enough to help them and…get a single compensatory draft pick back for his departure after half a season. 

Look, the Broncos trying to change this deal after the deadline is indeed a loophole the NFL should close. But that’s really missing the point here. 

The grander point is the Chargers said they wouldn’t trade key pieces, wound up changing their minds over a fifth-round pick and have since masked the erratic behavior by floating the idea this was all some master chess play to get extra draft picks and possibly Henley back, too. 

And the longer this foolishness keeps popping up around the Chargers, the easier it is to understand why they play the way they do on the field…and the more concerning it is when thinking about the long-term future of the club.

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