Los Angeles Chargers

Justin Herbert took fifty-four sacks this season and the Chargers still won eleven games. Let that one breathe. Here's how Los Angeles built a top-ten defense, why the run game quietly carried the offense down the stretch, and the one red-zone number that cost them in January. Eleven and six, a seven-seed wild card, and a season that ended with a thud — three to sixteen in New England, zero offensive touchdowns. The Chargers smashed the regular season. The postseason muffed them.

Start with the team-level portrait, because the splits tell a specific story. The defense was the engine — minus seventy-nine point two total expected points added allowed, and remember, big negative is elite on defense. Seventh in the league, eighty-first percentile. The offense? Minus twenty-five point four expected points added, twenty-fifth in the league, bottom quartile. This was a defense-and-special-teams operation: Cameron Dicker hit thirty-eight of forty-one field goals, ninety-three percent, fifth in the NFL. Third-down offense was genuinely elite — forty-six point four percent, third in the league, ninety-fourth percentile. The variance read is fascinating. Steady against good teams: beat the Chiefs twice, beat the Eagles in overtime, won at Dallas by seventeen. But three full no-shows — ten to twenty-seven against Washington, six to thirty-five at Jacksonville, three to nineteen at Denver in the finale. When this team got muffed, they got muffed badly.

Now let's talk about the passing offense. The headline: minus thirty-five total passing expected points added on six hundred and twenty-nine attempts — twenty-sixth in the league, twenty-second percentile. Bottom-of-the-league efficiency. The reason sits right there in the protection data — sixty sacks allowed on six hundred and eighty-one dropbacks, an eight point eight percent sack rate, fifth-most sacked in football. Herbert was running for his life. And yet — here's the wild part — his completion percentage over expected was plus three point three, eighth among qualified starters. Three thousand seven hundred and twenty-seven yards, twenty-six touchdowns, thirteen interceptions, eighth in the league in passing scores. Accurate. Productive. Constantly on the ground. Boom-or-bust by necessity: explosive when protection held, disastrous when it didn't. Ladd McConkey led the room with sixty-six catches for seven hundred and eighty-nine yards and six touchdowns. A productive aerial attack hiding inside a broken pocket.

Now let's dig into the rushing offense. This is where the Chargers actually outperformed expectations. Two thousand sixty-nine rushing yards on four hundred and sixty-seven carries, four point four a pop — twelfth in the league, sixty-sixth percentile. Rushing expected points added at minus six point three sounds rough, but it's still twelfth in the NFL, and the identity tightened late in the year. The lead back was rookie Omarion Hampton — five hundred and forty-five yards on a hundred and twenty-four carries with four scores across just nine games, plus eighty-one point six rushing yards over expected. That's how much more he gained than an average back would have given the same blocking. Trended up late. The Dallas win in Week sixteen, thirty-four to seventeen, was the ground-game showcase.

Next up, the pass defense. This is the unit that defined the season. Three thousand three hundred fourteen passing yards allowed across seventeen games — under one hundred ninety-five a game. Total passing expected points added allowed: minus fifty point two five, seventy-fifth percentile work. Forty-five sacks, eleventh in the league. Nineteen interceptions, three fumble recoveries, twenty-two takeaways total — eighth in the NFL, seventy-eighth percentile. And the takeaways came in bunches when it mattered. The Week fourteen overtime win against Philadelphia was a three-interception game against Jalen Hurts, sealed when Tony Jefferson picked him off at the one-yard line in overtime to set up the winning field goal. Game-sealing turnovers all year. Third-down stop rate landed in the eighty-eighth percentile — boom-or-bust elsewhere, but on third down, automatic.

And the run defense — this was the best unit on the team, full stop. Total rushing expected points added allowed: minus twenty-eight point nine eight, ninety-fourth percentile. One hundred six rushing yards allowed per game. Sixteen rushing touchdowns surrendered — solid — and the front consistently won the leverage battle on early downs. Steady floor, high ceiling. There was no week this group got gashed for two hundred on the ground. The foundation everything else was built on. The pass rush got home, the takeaways followed, and the run defense never let games tilt sideways. Bottom-line: a defense-first eleven-win team that finally ran into a wall it couldn't outscore in Foxborough.

Welcome back to Muffed, Chargers fans — 2026 draft recap. Joe Hortiz and Jim Harbaugh walked out of the weekend with eight new players and a clear thesis: rebuild the lines, add juice on the perimeter. The headliner is Miami edge Akheem Mesidor at pick 22, but the real story is a four-pick offensive line haul Harbaugh called the reason he's fired up. Hortiz said they had seven names stacked at the top of their board — they got four of them with their first four picks. Defense up top, trenches in the middle, a track-meet receiver mixed in. Let's get into it.

The Chargers generated 45 sacks in 2025 but only 88 quarterback hits across 17 games — solid pressure, no second alpha. Enter Mesidor at 22. Twelve and a half sacks and 17.5 tackles for loss at Miami, third nationally in sacks, fifth in tackles for loss, ACC sack leader. That's not a complementary rusher. He's 25 — old for a first-rounder — but the tape demanded it, and now opposing tackles get stressed from both sides. The second pass-defense pick: Arizona safety Genesis Smith at 131. Seventy-seven tackles, 8 pass breakups, and a Relative Athletic Score — that's the 0-to-10 grade comparing combine and pro-day testing to every player at that position since 1987 — of 9.81 at free safety. Top 2 percent of safeties ever tested. Harbaugh raved about a 42-and-a-half-inch vertical; Hortiz called him a rangy center-fielder who reads the quarterback. The plan: fifth defensive back in nickel next to Derwin James.

Now the trenches — because this is where the class lives. Sixty sacks allowed in 2025. Sixty. Plus 137 quarterback hits. Hortiz answered with four offensive linemen across three days, and the headliner is Florida center Jake Slaughter at pick 63. His Relative Athletic Score: 9.97 at center. The highest score ever recorded at the position. Top one tenth of one percent — smashed-the-combine territory. At 117 they moved up for Memphis tackle Travis Burke — a 9.05 Relative Athletic Score, top 5 percent of tackles ever measured, described by Chad Alexander as a massive human being with outstanding length and a nasty finishing streak. Then back-to-back sixth-rounders: Boston College's Logan Taylor at 202 (9.19 athletic grade, starts at both tackle and guard dating to Virginia), and Oregon's Alex Harkey at 206 (7.57 at guard). Harbaugh's kicker: the Chargers ended last season with three linemen under contract. They now have 14. That's the entire draft in one sentence.

The lone passing-game investment was Mississippi State receiver Brenen Thompson at 105 — and the production matches the speed. Fifty-seven catches, 1,054 yards, 6 touchdowns. That yardage total led the entire SEC. His predicted points added per play — the college equivalent of NFL expected points added — was plus 0.92, season total plus 75.36. Elite efficiency, not just volume. Hortiz called his ball-tracking downfield elite and plans to give him return reps — he averaged 43 yards on his lone return last year. The room reached for DeSean Jackson and Tyreek Hill on the size-and-speed spectrum, and Hortiz noted Mike McDaniel was so locked in he reportedly threatened to take his shirt off if the Chargers drafted him. Conviction.

The one run-defense pick: South Carolina defensive tackle Nick Barrett at 145. Forty-two tackles, 6 tackles for loss, 2 sacks, and a 7.68 Relative Athletic Score — solid, not spectacular. What sold the room was the body: 340 pounds two years ago, down to the 318-to-322 range to earn snaps. Hortiz and Alexander called him a Chargers-mentality player — physical, instinctive, plays with violence. Depth and competition in a tackle room that already had four bodies.

Pick of the draft: Jake Slaughter at 63. You can argue Mesidor — the first-round production case is real. But Slaughter is the rarest thing in this class: the highest center Relative Athletic Score ever recorded, at the end of round two, on a team that just gave up 60 sacks. Centers who test like that don't exist. Generational athletic profile, most communication-heavy spot on the line, biggest hole on the roster, day-two cost. That's the pick that defines the haul.

The 2026 stress test is simple: did they fix the pass protection enough to let this offense breathe? Sixty sacks hangs over everything, and the answer is four linemen plus a track-meet receiver to stretch the field. If Slaughter, Burke, and Taylor solidify the front and Thompson opens the intermediate windows, the entire offense unlocks. The one room that didn't get reinforced is cornerback — Hortiz said the board never broke that way — and that's free agency's problem now. On the trenches and the perimeter, this class swung at the right pitches.