The Los Angeles Chargers entered the offseason with a miserable salary cap situation, and in spite of some maneuvering and an NFL cap spike, they are still significantly over the cap.
The Chargers are still $25 million over the cap, and with the new league year beginning at 4 p.m. ET on Wednesday afternoon, Los Angeles will be forced to make some tough decisions.
ESPN’s Adam Schefter says that the Bolts will need trade or release at least one of Khalil Mack, Joey Bosa, Keenan Allen and Mike Williams in order to be compliant with the NFL’s cap rules.
Obviously, all of those players should have trade value. Mack in particular racked up a career-high 17.5 sacks this past season, so teams in need of an edge rusher should absolutely be placing calls to LA.
The problem is that rival clubs know that the Chargers need to make these moves as soon as possible, so they may end up low-balling them with trade offers.
In the end, Los Angeles may have to end up cutting at least one of the above players, which would certainly represent a rather unceremonious conclusion for the front office. After all, the Chargers have known about their rough salary cap circumstances for some time now, so they could have been making stronger efforts to trade some pieces over the last month or so.
Then again, perhaps Los Angeles did make some phone calls, but opposing organizations knew the situation and were not willing to surrender legitimate assets for players who a.) cost a lot of money, and b.) were going to be cut candidates in mid-March.
The Chargers went just 5-12 this past season and have made just two playoff appearances since 2014. They did land a postseason berth two years ago, but fell to the Jacksonville Jaguars in the Wild Card Round.
There unfortunately isn’t much Los Angeles can do in free agency, so the Chargers will plainly have to get under the cap (somehow) and punt to the NFL Draft next month.
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