{"id":788159,"date":"2026-03-03T03:42:15","date_gmt":"2026-03-03T03:42:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/788159\/"},"modified":"2026-03-03T03:42:15","modified_gmt":"2026-03-03T03:42:15","slug":"how-khalil-macks-decision-for-2026-impacts-chargers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/788159\/","title":{"rendered":"How Khalil Mack&#8217;s decision for 2026 impacts Chargers"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.yardbarker.com\/nfl\/players\/khalil_mack\/320381\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Khalil Mack\u00a0<\/a>will be an NFL Hall of Famer when all is said and done. He&#8217;s not done yet, though.<\/p>\n<p>He&#8217;s just turned 35, and he&#8217;s been in the league since 2014.<\/p>\n<p>Mack took some time to mull retirement this offseason after his 12th season in the NFL. That time led him to believe that he&#8217;s still got something left in the tank, though.<\/p>\n<p>According to Ian Rapoport, Mack will be coming back for the 2026 season.<\/p>\n<p>Notably, Mack is set to be a free agent, so he could literally play anywhere in 2026. Multiple teams will absolutely be interested in bringing him in as a veteran pass-rusher, but he&#8217;s spent the last four seasons with the<a href=\"https:\/\/www.yardbarker.com\/nfl\/teams\/los_angeles_chargers\/45\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">\u00a0Los Angeles Chargers<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Los Angeles Chargers want to re-sign Khalil Mack\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>According to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/nfl\/story\/_\/id\/48085402\/khalil-mack-play-2026-mulling-retirement-explore-all-free-agency-options\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">ESPN&#8217;s Kris Rhim<\/a>, the Chargers do hope to re-sign Mack.<\/p>\n<p>Los Angeles is going into the 2026 offseason with a <a href=\"https:\/\/overthecap.com\/salary-cap-space\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">ton of cap space<\/a>, so there&#8217;s a good chance the Chargers will be able to bring Mack back as long as he wants to play another season for Jim Harbaugh&#8217;s team.<\/p>\n<p>Mack signed a one-year, $18 million contract with the Chargers ahead of last season, and <a href=\"https:\/\/overthecap.com\/salary-cap-space\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Spotrac believes<\/a> that his worth on the open market in 2026 would be about the same.<\/p>\n<p>Of course, and outside team could come in and try to steal Mack away with a bigger offer, but one would imagine his comfort level with the Chargers will end up playing out in their favor.<\/p>\n<p>The former 2016 NFL Defensive Player of the Year and a nine-time Pro Bowler, Mack notched 5.5 sacks in 2025. He missed four games due to an elbow injury.<\/p>\n<p>As a player who will one day be wearing a gold jacket, he has 113 career sacks heading into 2026. That&#8217;s the seventh-most amongst all active NFL players.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Khalil Mack\u00a0will be an NFL Hall of Famer when all is said and done. He&#8217;s not done yet,&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":788160,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2064],"tags":[241,7,1014,262,2444,2443,6],"class_list":{"0":"post-788159","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-los-angeles-chargers","8":"tag-chargers","9":"tag-football","10":"tag-los-angeles","11":"tag-los-angeles-chargers","12":"tag-losangeles","13":"tag-losangeleschargers","14":"tag-nfl"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/116163179222634930","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/788159","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=788159"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/788159\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/788160"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=788159"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=788159"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=788159"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}