2023 Official Roster Build Thread - The Initial 53 / Practice Squad

[Critty]

Every year fans around here are way off on projections.

TT and Ed McGuire will implement a plan to all of ours surprise.

Contract extension for Allen, Mack, Linsley, Davis and Ekeler.
Opens up 47mil

Trade Bosa post June 1 for 2024 draft picks. 7mil dead hit.
Opens up 24mil.

That 70mil of cap space.
Plenty to offer Justin Herbert the 12year/500mil. 250guaranteed Contract that he should be given.

Getting everything align to offer Justin a 12 year deal should be the top priority for Chargers.

[Bolt4Knob]

Contract extension for Allen, Mack, Linsley, Davis and Ekeler.
Opens up 47mil

Trade Bosa post June 1 for 2024 draft picks. 7mil dead hit.
Opens up 24mil.

That 70mil of cap space.
Plenty to offer Justin Herbert the 12year/500mil. 250guaranteed Contract that he should be given.

Getting everything align to offer Justin a 12 year deal should be the top priority for Chargers.

But you are taking 47m of cap space this year and pushing it to next year - when as of today, they are 47m under the cap - so that will vanish . In fact, they will be probably 25m over the cap because they still need to fill a roster. So than you take from 2025 and on and on

Or you can do the smart thing - there are two players to do something with
restructure one
or trade/release the other

[gzubeck]

Contract extension for Allen, Mack, Linsley, Davis and Ekeler.
Opens up 47mil

Trade Bosa post June 1 for 2024 draft picks. 7mil dead hit.
Opens up 24mil.

That 70mil of cap space.
Plenty to offer Justin Herbert the 12year/500mil. 250guaranteed Contract that he should be given.

Getting everything align to offer Justin a 12 year deal should be the top priority for Chargers.

This is just silly guaranteed money...even for Herbert and I'm his biggest fan. Anything more than $120 million Guarantee is just insane. The way you can structure a guarantee is have half of it come off the books every year he plays. So $20 mill over six years. That way lets say after year 3 he has a career ending injury. He still makes $40 mill for the first three years and has a $60 mill payout if he has to retire. $250 mill guarantee is a recipe for disaster...

[Boltnut]

No, OL includes OT.

i actually don’t care what rounds they get the necessary guys in. We all know what we need. RB, WR, LB, Etc. depth at OL and DL maybe edge IDK. Probably doesn’t matter

We have Ekeler (1,600+ total yards, 18 total TD's, 4.5 ypc). We have a backup RB in Kelley (4.2 ypc). And drafted a 4th round RB in Spiller last draft. Better run-blocking will improve each and every one of these players. Everybody loves Bijan. If he's as good as everyones says he is, how does he last to the #21 pick...?

We have KA (one of the best route runners in the NFL), Mike Williams (one of the best contested pass catchers) and developing Joshua Palmer (72 catches last season). Speed is the 1 missing ingredient. But bring back Guyton on a cheap contract and draft a speedy WR (4th round or later) and you have that WR that can stretch the field and give KA, MW, and Palmer more room to operate... with the occasional deep strike. Without a good offensive line, none of this can be accomplished anyhow... even with 1st round RB/WR. Najee Harris had a 3.8 ypc average last year. None of the post-21st pick WR's did much. Their production was far below what even Joshua Palmer did last year. Even Gerald Everett out-produced them.

We happen to agree on LB. The need is there. I'm sure the new LB coach will help.
IMO, any needs list that doesn't include CB is not really a list. Consider our current CB depth chart... or the fact that the nickel defense is our base... or our coach's defensive approach... and you just can't ignore CB on any PON list. It's like leaving Coach Coryell off the HOF list.

[Critty]

This is just silly guaranteed money...even for Herbert and I'm his biggest fan. Anything more than $120 million Guarantee is just insane. The way you can structure a guarantee is have half of it come off the books every year he plays. So $20 mill over six years. That way lets say after year 3 he has a career ending injury. He still makes $40 mill for the first three years and has a $60 mill payout if he has to retire. $250 mill guarantee is a recipe for disaster...

Im not worried about career ending injury in today's NFL with the improvement in medicine. What used to be career ending is now just rehab and recovery.

12y/500m with 250m guarantee will be a steal of a deal.
QBs value just goes up and up.

100mil signing bonus. 50mil per year for 1st 3 years.
All guaranteed paid out in 1st 3 years of deal.
The final 9 years. 27.7mil per year. Plus the 8.3 hit for the signing bonus is 36mil cap hit per year. You can really build something special around Justin for a decade with a cap number of 36mil.

[gzubeck]

Im not worried about career ending injury in today's NFL with the improvement in medicine. What used to be career ending is now just rehab and recovery.

12y/500m with 250m guarantee will be a steal of a deal.
QBs value just goes up and up.

100mil signing bonus. 50mil per year for 1st 3 years.
All guaranteed paid out in 1st 3 years of deal.
The final 9 years. 27.7mil per year. Plus the 8.3 hit for the signing bonus is 36mil cap hit per year. You can really build something special around Justin for a decade with a cap number of 36mil.

Still crazy. Lots of players are done after 10 years in the NFL. Mostly due to injuries that become chronic over time. I like Herbert but this guaranteed money is backfiring and we're seeing unfold on the Chargers as we speak. We need to stop using some players that are successful as marketing propaganda. TOO MUCH GUARANTEED MONEY is a negative more than a positive.

[Bolt4Knob]

That non-skill focus will give us the same non-dynamic always-pressed offense we had in 2022 unless Moore is a complete magician. Able to beat bad teams, won’t compete with the elites. my strategy is the anti-nut draft. Sign Pipkins to solidify our OL and thats 3 starting caliber OTs - no team has 4 I know of. Go elite skill in 1 and 2 - Speed/slot WR, Power RB, and/or TE. Add depth at IDL, we already have starters we’re not going to cut. We also already have CBs on the roster, pending JCJ prognosis of course. We could use Edge, not on your list.

I agree on LB. Tired of betting on K9, Tranq is pretty good but not great and he’s a FA.

Zay Flowers R1

Hyatt from UT or Reed from MSU in R2

Edge or TE in R3

If you want to go TE in R1 and WR in R2 and R3 - thats fine

Trade back in Round 1 to get 4 picks by the end of Day 2 to add Edge to the mix - that also works

But speed at WR is a must - two picks

[Boltjolt]

We have Ekeler (1,600+ total yards, 18 total TD's, 4.5 ypc). We have a backup RB in Kelley (4.2 ypc). And drafted a 4th round RB in Spiller last draft. Better run-blocking will improve each and every one of these players. Everybody loves Bijan. If he's as good as everyones says he is, how does he last to the #21 pick...?

We have KA (one of the best route runners in the NFL), Mike Williams (one of the best contested pass catchers) and developing Joshua Palmer (72 catches last season). Speed is the 1 missing ingredient. But bring back Guyton on a cheap contract and draft a speedy WR (4th round or later) and you have that can stretch the field and give KA, MW, and Palmer more room to operate... with the occasional deep strike. Without a good offensive line, none of this can be accomplished anyhow... even with 1st round RB/WR. Najee Harris had a 3.8 ypc average last year. None of the post-21st pick WR's did much. Their production was far below what even Joshua Palmer did last year. Even Gerald Everett out-produced them.

We happen to agree on LB. The need is there. I'm sure the new LB coach will help.
IMO, any needs list that doesn't include CB is not really a list. Consider our current CB depth chart... or the fact that the nickel defense is our base... or our coach's defensive approach... and you just can't ignore CB on any PON list. It's like leaving Coach Coryell off the HOF list.

Najee Harris lasted to 24, Etienne to 25.
Last year the first RB came off in the 2nd round.

2020 at 1-32

2019, Jacobs was first at 1-24

2018, Barkley at 1-2 but the next guy at 1-27

Don't think Bijan is Barkley but he does remind me some of him.

Harris was pretty damn good and so was Breece Hall.

[Boltnut]

I've gone to the OTC cap site over and over. You can re-structure guys (Bosa and Williams), you can extend guys (Vato), you can cut guys (Feiler/Hopkins)... but in the end, you can create enough cap space to fill your 2023 roster with 53 viable players (non-PS guys), sign your draft class, and have a little in-season space to sign FA's when injury occurs. Re-structures and extensions don't make the money magically disappear!! It gets eaten up cap in future years... depending how long the contracts are currently structured. The one thing that is fortunate for 2024, is that Herbert can be re-signed and structured so that the front end of the contract's cap hit is lower than the back-end.

Here are some of the resulting issues:
1) You can't re-sign FA's that will be due big pay increases: Pipkins, Tranquill, Callahan, Adderly, Fox... dudes have to think of their futures/families. Their agents have a job to do... and commissions to make. The only realistic re-signs are guys like Guyton, Dicker, Parham, Fehoko... It ain't sexy, but it fills a 53-man roster with known commodities and doesn't break your 2024 cap.
2) The 2024 cap space is not large to start with... and those re-structures/extensions make it smaller pretty quickly. You have to have something left to pay Herbert and fill a roster with legitimate NFL players.
3) One of the Big-4 (probably KA) will have to be cut at the end of the 2023 season. The cut will have to happen to accommodate the 2024 cap that got obliterated by the re-structures/extension.

Nutty's suggestion:

1) Cut Feiler and Hopkins. They have cheap replacements already... Salyer and ERFA Dicker.
2) Re-structure Joey and MW. They're younger and their contract structures are built for that.
3) Extend Vato. He's a vital part of Staley's defense, he's younger, and you can back-load the contract into 2025... where the space exists.
4) Cut KA after the 2023 season. I hate this because I love the player. But it saves the 2024 cap from the abuse of the re-structures and extension. It's a necessary evil.

I just think it's ridiculous to go into 2023 without the Big-4 (KA, MW, JB, and Mack). It's also ridiculous to expect to replace their production with draft picks. Other than KA, they are all high 1st-round draft picks that produced very quickly. Anything less, and it's a crap-shoot... as evidenced by prior drafts. I could supply a long list of 1st-round picks that never lived up to expectations... not just in the short-run... but ever.

[jamrock]

We have Ekeler (1,600+ total yards, 18 total TD's, 4.5 ypc). We have a backup RB in Kelley (4.2 ypc). And drafted a 4th round RB in Spiller last draft. Better run-blocking will improve each and every one of these players. Everybody loves Bijan. If he's as good as everyones says he is, how does he last to the #21 pick...?

We have KA (one of the best route runners in the NFL), Mike Williams (one of the best contested pass catchers) and developing Joshua Palmer (72 catches last season). Speed is the 1 missing ingredient. But bring back Guyton on a cheap contract and draft a speedy WR (4th round or later) and you have that WR that can stretch the field and give KA, MW, and Palmer more room to operate... with the occasional deep strike. Without a good offensive line, none of this can be accomplished anyhow... even with 1st round RB/WR. Najee Harris had a 3.8 ypc average last year. None of the post-21st pick WR's did much. Their production was far below what even Joshua Palmer did last year. Even Gerald Everett out-produced them.

We happen to agree on LB. The need is there. I'm sure the new LB coach will help.
IMO, any needs list that doesn't include CB is not really a list. Consider our current CB depth chart... or the fact that the nickel defense is our base... or our coach's defensive approach... and you just can't ignore CB on any PON list. It's like leaving Coach Coryell off the HOF list.

I’d hate to go into 23 without a bell cow back. Ek is getting older and should really be our Ronnie Harmon. Kelley is ok but isn’t striking fear in anyone’s heart. Spiller couldn’t get on the field. I said before last season we needed it and I haven’t changed my mind. Now more than ever. I wanted Kenneth Walker last year. He would’ve helped.

mat WR we can’t count on the guys you mentioned to stay healthy and we saw what it looked like when KA and MW were out. Not pretty.

LB we agree.

DB we drafted 3 guys last year. They can depth but they’re gonna have AsJ, Vato and JCJ back. Those are your starters. It’s not a position of great need. Edge is more pressing

[wu-dai clan]

Yes, I believe Duncan could be added to my OT cluster (1st-2nd round). Duke could probably clean up some of those inconsistencies I keep seeing. Jaelyn has had a nice Senior Bowl. I'll wath him during the game.

I absolutely love CB Clark Phillips in the 1st round. I like a number of CB's in the 2nd round. Give me specific CB's you like in rounds 3-5... I'll start rolling tape on them. My initial viewings tell me that last year's round 3-5 CB prospects were better than this year's...

With the improved play of Gilman... and hopes for JT Woods... I've backed away from my wish for another safety.
My PON list: CB, OT, LB, IOL, IDL, WR depth, RB depth, TE depth... man, hardly any room for safety depth... although I wouldn't complain. Does your pastey-legged safety happen to return punts...? You're eye is keen, my man...

1. Riley Moss.
2. Darius Rush.
3. Tyrique Stevenson.

More later.

[Boltnut]

Najee Harris lasted to 24, Etienne to 25.
Last year the first RB came off in the 2nd round.

2020 at 1-32

2019, Jacobs was first at 1-24

2018, Barkley at 1-2 but the next guy at 1-27

Don't think Bijan is Barkley but he does remind me some of him.

Harris was pretty damn good and so was Breece Hall.

Breece Hall and Kenneth Walker were pretty good (when healthy). Neither one of them out-produced Ekeler. 7th rounder Isiah Pacheco was nearly as good as Walker or Hall.

Josh Jacobs is very good, too. He finally out-produced Ekeler this year. Jacobs has been pretty 1-dimensional, however. Ekeler is the better receiver.
Jacobs has a career 4.4 ypc average. Ekeler has a career 4.6 ypc average. Ekeler has 63 career TD's, Jacobs has 40 career TD's.

Najee Harris has averaged 3.9 ypc over his 2-year career. I loved him in college. His pro career has been disappointing thus far. The Steelers used to have good OL's. I feel sorry for Harris... he deserves better.

Barkley is Bijan's best comp. Again, I wonder if Bijan makes it to #21.
With Ekeler's production, I wonder if we use a #21 to split carries.

RB's just aren't valued the way they used to be. Later round RB's have produced well behind quality OL's.
LaDanian Tomlinson averaged 3.6 ypc behind that crappy OL in 2001.