{"id":846338,"date":"2026-04-01T04:31:21","date_gmt":"2026-04-01T04:31:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/846338\/"},"modified":"2026-04-01T04:31:21","modified_gmt":"2026-04-01T04:31:21","slug":"chargers-comments-about-ol-are-concerning-but-with-a-twist","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/846338\/","title":{"rendered":"Chargers&#8217; Comments About OL Are Concerning&#8230;But With a Twist"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Even the most casual of football fans knew the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.si.com\/nfl\/chargers\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:Los Angeles Chargers;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" data-yga=\"{&quot;yLinkElement&quot;:&quot;context_link&quot;,&quot;yModuleName&quot;:&quot;content-canvas&quot;,&quot;yLinkText&quot;:&quot;Los Angeles Chargers&quot;}\" class=\"link \">Los Angeles Chargers<\/a> were going into this offseason looking for offensive line help to better protect Justin Herbert.<\/p>\n<p>But after securing an upgrade at center with Tyler Biadasz, the Chargers backed off the major need.<\/p>\n<p>Advertisement<\/p>\n<p>Well, except for the signing of Cole Strange, a guard familiar with Chargers offensive coordinator Mike McDaniel.<\/p>\n<p>Jim Harbaugh&#8217;s comments about the Strange signing at NFL meetings, via <a href=\"https:\/\/www.chargers.com\/news\/jim-harbaugh-mike-mcdaniel-nfl-owners-meetings\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:Eric Smith;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" data-yga=\"{&quot;yLinkElement&quot;:&quot;context_link&quot;,&quot;yModuleName&quot;:&quot;content-canvas&quot;,&quot;yLinkText&quot;:&quot;Eric Smith&quot;}\" class=\"link \">Eric Smith<\/a> of <a href=\"http:\/\/Chargers.com\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:Chargers.com;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" data-yga=\"{&quot;yLinkElement&quot;:&quot;context_link&quot;,&quot;yModuleName&quot;:&quot;content-canvas&quot;,&quot;yLinkText&quot;:&quot;Chargers.com&quot;}\" class=\"link \">Chargers.com<\/a>, came off as a little concerning:<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Familiarity and availability. As Mike was explaining the offense, and Butch Barry, we were watching a lot of Miami tape. You could see Cole Strange was really good at all the things they would be implementing.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Not necessarily the type of praise fans want to see for Strange, a guy who finished ranked <a href=\"https:\/\/www.pff.com\/nfl\/players\/cole-strange\/22976\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:58 out of 81 guards;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" data-yga=\"{&quot;yLinkElement&quot;:&quot;context_link&quot;,&quot;yModuleName&quot;:&quot;content-canvas&quot;,&quot;yLinkText&quot;:&quot;58 out of 81 guards&quot;}\" class=\"link \">58 out of 81 guards<\/a> at PFF last year.<\/p>\n<p>Knowing the system is one thing, but when both guard spots still need upgraded, that sort of commentary doesn&#8217;t inspire confidence.<\/p>\n<p>Advertisement<\/p>\n<p>Chargers could still tackle OL in free agency and draft<img alt=\"Los Angeles Chargers head coach Jim Harbaugh\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"912\" height=\"513\" decoding=\"async\" data-nimg=\"1\" class=\"standard-img\" style=\"color:transparent\" src=\"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/54f5a7e2e647327a95a2d00fbae24ddf.jpeg\"\/><\/p>\n<p>Jim Harbaugh | Mark J. Rebilas-Imagn Images<\/p>\n<p>Small caveat to the above: Harbaugh is at least willing to admit the Chargers aren&#8217;t done adding to the group.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;More to come. Free agency still continues and the draft is coming soon,&#8221; Harbaugh said, per Smith.<\/p>\n<p>Harbaugh added this about more outsiders joining up: &#8220;Competing, starters? Yeah, sure. Competitors welcome, you know how I feel about that. There&#8217;s more to come.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The &#8220;Competitors welcome&#8221; thing has worn thin for Chargers fans who heard that all last year, only for obvious problem point Bradley Bozeman to keep going unchallenged at center.<\/p>\n<p>Advertisement<\/p>\n<p>Similar story for bringing back guys like Trey Pipkins and Trevor Penning. They have important versatility, but if things get to the point where they&#8217;re the only big names in a competition or need to see the field, then things are in trouble already.<\/p>\n<p>Alas, heavy coach-speak or not, the Chargers could still stumble their way into two starters at guard who aren&#8217;t on the roster right now. The first and even second round can provide that, as could free agents like Kevin Zeitler.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.si.com\/nfl\/chargers\/newsletter\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:Sign Up For the Chargers Daily Digest - OnSI&#039;s Free Los Angeles Chargers Newsletter;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" data-yga=\"{&quot;yLinkElement&quot;:&quot;context_link&quot;,&quot;yModuleName&quot;:&quot;content-canvas&quot;,&quot;yLinkText&quot;:&quot;Sign Up For the Chargers Daily Digest - OnSI&#039;&quot;}\" class=\"link \">Sign Up For the Chargers Daily Digest &#8211; OnSI&#8217;s Free Los Angeles Chargers Newsletter<\/a><\/p>\n<p>This article was originally published on www.si.com\/nfl\/chargers\/onsi as <a href=\"https:\/\/www.si.com\/nfl\/chargers\/onsi\/chargers-comments-concerning-twist-justin-herbert-line?utm_source=RSS\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:Chargers&#039; Comments About OL Are Concerning...But With a Twist;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" data-yga=\"{&quot;yLinkElement&quot;:&quot;context_link&quot;,&quot;yModuleName&quot;:&quot;content-canvas&quot;,&quot;yLinkText&quot;:&quot;Chargers&#039;&quot;}\" class=\"link \">Chargers&#8217; Comments About OL Are Concerning&#8230;But With a Twist<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Even the most casual of football fans knew the Los Angeles Chargers were going into this offseason looking&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":846339,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2064],"tags":[10731,241,6302,36673,7,1012,1159,6919,1014,262,2444,2443,24211,216,6,1482,8581,8401,11221],"class_list":["post-846338","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-los-angeles-chargers","tag-bradley-bozeman","tag-chargers","tag-cole-strange","tag-eric-smith","tag-football","tag-jim-harbaugh","tag-justin-herbert","tag-kevin-zeitler","tag-los-angeles","tag-los-angeles-chargers","tag-losangeles","tag-losangeleschargers","tag-mark-j-rebilas-imagn","tag-miami","tag-nfl","tag-offensive-line","tag-trevor-penning","tag-trey-pipkins","tag-tyler-biadasz"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/116327579982105981","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/846338","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=846338"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/846338\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/846339"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=846338"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=846338"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=846338"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}