The Los Angeles Chargers will sell at the NFL trade deadline.
That feels like an obvious fact. Yet the way the Chargers have worked the trade phones so far, reports say other NFL teams are confused about how general manager Joe Hortiz and the club in Los Angeles have moved so far.
At 0-7 and counting, that should change. Justin Herbert trade packages probably won't surface, or matter if they do. But guys like Khalil Mack, Donte Jackson and others could probably be had for the right price (and they owe it to Mack to send him to a contender if he wants).
There's also the matter of Tuli Tuipulotu. It shouldn't be a thing for the Chargers. But it just might be.
Tuli Tuipulotu | IMAGN IMAGES via Reuters Connect
...if they want to move him.
Yes, it sounds ridiculous. The Chargers roster Tuipulotu, who has 29 sacks in 57 games and is just 24 years old. Why would they trade him away?
Well, for one, as The Athletic's Daniel Popper noted while listing Tuipulotu as the No. 2 overall trade candidate, big spenders like the San Francisco 49ers and Dallas Cowboys would likely have interest.
"Tuipulotu took a big step as a player in 2025," Popper wrote. "He has sustained that performance this season. Since the start of 2025, Tuipulotu ranks 12th in pressure rate among players with at least 250 pass-rush snaps."
Tuipulotu is on the final year of his rookie contract and the team and player couldn't agree to an extension this past summer.
Two, there's also the matter of this being the Chargers . Fans just watched the team trade for Odafe Oweh last year, get a breakout from him, then refuse to re-sign him despite approaching free agency with nearly $100 million in cap space. So they burned the trade asset for a half-season rental, then drafted Akheem Mesidor because he's an "older" rookie while trying to replace Oweh's production.
Which is to say, the Chargers don't always make sense. And who knows? Maybe the Tuipulotu contract extension talks were worse than outsiders know. He's going to come close to resetting the market. The Chargers still have roughly $26 million in free cap space right now but didn't get something done.
One would think that Tuipulotu is a big building block and a nice one-two punch with Mesidor no matter what happens to the team and coaching staff next offseason. But the Chargers are in this hole in the first place because they don't act like a normal, modern NFL franchise all the time.
So...don't count out a good offer from a team like the 49ers or Cowboys suddenly causing some chaos over the next week before the deadline.
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This article was originally published on www.si.com/nfl/chargers/onsi as Would Chargers Trade Tuli Tuipulotu to Desperate 49ers, Cowboys at NFL Deadline? .
