Chargers To Place Derwin James On IR
Derwin James underwent foot surgery on Thursday, and the second-year Chargers safety will soon have a clearer timeline. The Chargers will place the All-Pro talent on IR before Week 1, Ian Rapoport of NFL.com reports (on Twitter).
The Bolts made the move to place James on IR Sunday. They are planning to replace him on the roster with defensive back Jaylen Watkins, Daniel Popper of The Athletic tweets.
Los Angeles will carry James through to their 53-man roster, making him eligible for one of its two IR-return slots. Were the Chargers to place James on IR before finalizing their 53-man unit, he would be out for the season. With James on IR after roster cutdown day, the Bolts will have to play at least two months without him.
That lines up with James’ timetable. He is expected to need at least three months to recover from the stress fracture in the fifth metatarsal of his right foot, making an IR stay logical. He will not be eligible to return from IR until Week 9, and if this recovery timeline is accurate, it may be further into the season before the Chargers have their back-line chess piece available again.
While the Chargers will obviously miss their do-it-all defender, they re-signed All-Pro special-teamer/hybrid linebacker Adrian Phillips in March and drafted Nasir Adderley in the second round a month later.
Chargers Will Not Extend Melvin Gordon In 2019
It’s unclear what will happen next with Melvin Gordon, but we now know one thing. The Chargers’ running back won’t be getting the extension he wants from Los Angeles this season.
Chargers GM Tom Telesco announced Sunday the team is postponing extension talks until after the season, according to Gilbert Manzano of the OC Register (Twitter link). The Chargers have been negotiating with Gordon this summer, although obviously they didn’t offer anything Gordon and his representatives were willing to accept. We heard back in July that the two sides were about $2-3MM apart in talks.
Those talks will now be tabled until the end of the season, if they’re ever brought back again at all. “When or if Melvin reports, he’ll play this season under his current contract, and we’ll just revisit it after the season,” Telesco said, via Eric D. Williams of ESPN.com (Twitter link). Telesco is playing hardball, and clearly isn’t going to budge. Just yesterday, word leaked that the Chargers had given the Wisconsin product permission to seek a trade.
That same report also indicated that Gordon hadn’t ruled out returning and playing out the final year of his rookie deal. He’s currently set to make $5.605MM under the fifth-year option. Of course even if Gordon is able to find a team willing to trade for him, they’d have to offer compensation that the Chargers want. He doesn’t have too much leverage at the moment, since if he doesn’t play this season his contract would simply toll to 2020.
Gordon had by far the best year of his career in 2018, and now he’s trying to cash in. The Chargers have remained firm in their stance and haven’t backed down, and appear content to enter the season with Austin Ekeler and second-year player Justin Jackson atop the depth chart. It’ll be interesting to see what Gordon does next, and how much time he’s willing to miss.
Chiefs Sign LeSean McCoy
LeSean McCoy‘s stay on the open market didn’t last long. Released by the Bills yesterday, Shady immediately drew interest from four teams, and as Adam Schefter of ESPN.com reports, McCoy will sign with the Chiefs. Terez A. Paylor of Yahoo! Sports says it will be a one-year, $3MM pact with incentives that can increase the value to $4MM (Twitter link).
Paylor adds in a separate tweet that the Chargers offered McCoy a similar contract, but McCoy opted to head to Kansas City due to his familiarity with head coach Andy Reid and the club’s front office. McCoy spent the first four years of his career under Reid when both men were with the Eagles.
The Chiefs’ decision to sign McCoy suggests that they were not entirely comfortable with presumptive RB1 Damien Williams taking the lion’s share of the carries. McCoy and Williams — much to the chagrin of Williams fantasy owners — will likely share the load, with sixth-round rookie Darwin Thompson and second-year player Darrel Williams in support.
McCoy struggled in 2018, which turned out to be his final year in Buffalo, but the Bills’ O-line was a mess. The six-time Pro Bowler is definitely nearing the end of the road, but he did top 1,000 yards in each of his prior two seasons with the Bills, and with a dynamic offense around him and younger players to ease some of his burden, there is reason to believe that he can be productive for the Chiefs in 2019.
McCoy, 31, has 10,606 career rushing yards, good for 25th on the all-time list.
Four Teams Interested In LeSean McCoy
The Chiefs are going to face some competition if they plan on pursuing LeSean McCoy. McCoy was cut by the Bills earlier this morning, and we heard soon after that Kansas City had some interest.
The Chargers, Eagles, and Patriots are also showing strong early interest in McCoy, sources told Ian Rapoport of NFL Network (Twitter link). As Rapoport points out, the Chargers are interested because of the ongoing Melvin Gordon holdout. Just a few hours ago, it was reported that the Chargers had given Gordon permission to seek a trade. As of right now, Los Angeles is slated to roll with youngsters Austin Ekeler and Justin Jackson if Gordon doesn’t report for the regular season.
The Eagles traded for Jordan Howard earlier this offseason and drafted Miles Sanders in the second-round back in April, but they apparently aren’t satisfied completely with their running back group. The position was a weakness all of last year for them, so it makes sense why they’d want to bolster it as much as possible. McCoy, of course, started his career with the Eagles and spent his first six years in Philly, so there’s some familiarity there.
The Patriots have Sony Michel topping the depth chart, James White as their pass-catching specialist, and they also drafted Damien Harris in the third-round. All of these suitors are projected playoff teams, so it looks like McCoy will have his pick of contenders when he chooses where to play in 2019.
Chargers Slash Roster To 53
In addition to the Chargers’ Russell Okung announcement, they finalized their 53-man roster.
Cardale Jones did not make the team, with Los Angeles going with Tyrod Taylor and rookie Easton Stick behind Philip Rivers. The XFL has openly mentioned Jones on multiple occasions, so the former Bills and Ohio State passer could be a high-profile candidate for the upstart league.
Here are the Bolts’ Saturday cuts:
- Patrick Afriyie, DE
- Larry Allen, G
- Chris Brown, G
- Blake Camper, T
- Thomas Costigan, DE
- Jeremy Cox, RB
- Spencer Drango, G
- Malachi Dupre, WR
- Derrick Gore, RB
- Kemon Hall, CB
- Reggie Howard, DT
- Ben Johnson, TE
- Cardale Jones , QB
- Anthony Lanier, DE
- Bradford Lemmons, CB
- Justice Liggins, WR
- Dee Liner, DT
- Vince Mayle, TE
- T.Y. McGill, DT
- Jamar McGloster, T
- Jason Moore, WR
- Detrez Newsome, RB
- Tyler Newsome, P
- Andre Patton, WR
- Adarius Pickett, S
- Rodney Randle, CB
- Jeff Richards, CB
- Artavis Scott, WR
- Jordan Smallwood, WR
- Matt Sokol, TE
- Arrion Springs, CB
- Tanner Volson, C
- Jaylen Watkins, S
- Brant Weiss, T
- Kyle Wilson, LB
- Elijah Zeise, LB
Chargers Place Russell Okung On Reserve/NFI List
Russell Okung‘s Chargers season cannot begin until at least Week 7. The Bolts placed their starting left tackle on the reserve/NFI list, Adam Schefter of ESPN.com tweets.
Okung has been dealing with blood clots. A Chargers line that struggled down the stretch last season will now not have one of its anchors. This has obviously become a rather serious situation for Okung, a 2010 first-round pick, and it’s now conceivable he will not play this season.
Los Angeles has third-round rookie Trey Pipkins and second-year UDFA Trent Scott as backup options and could look to waivers for additional help.
The soon-to-be 32-year-old edge blocker made the 2017 Pro Bowl and has started 31 games with the Bolts since signing a lucrative contract in 2017. Okung’s four-year, $53MM deal has two years remaining. He is on the Los Angeles cap sheet at $15.9MM in 2019.
Chargers Give Melvin Gordon Permission To Seek Trade
With contract talks between the Chargers and Melvin Gordon not progressing, the team will give the fifth-year running back permission to seek a trade, Ian Rapoport of NFL.com reports (on Twitter).
Gordon has not ruled out returning to the Bolts on his current contract, per RapSheet, but the Pro Bowl back will now explore his options elsewhere.
The running back has balked at the Bolts’ proposal to this point and has been training in Florida. Gordon can’t sit out the entire season — or at least, he can’t sit out the entire season if he wants to become a free agent next spring (which he does). If Gordon doesn’t report by November 29, he won’t be eligible to play during the 2019 campaign. At that point, his contract would toll: his $5.605MM salary would simply carry over to 2020, and he’d remain under the Chargers’ control.
The Chargers saw Austin Ekeler average north of five yards per carry last season, and the team drafted Justin Jackson in last year’s second round. This duo would be likely set for a timeshare if Gordon heads elsewhere. The next few days will give the former Wisconsin star a chance to determine his value. That process may well lead him out of Los Angeles, but it could also end his holdout — if the money from other teams is not to Gordon’s liking.
Russell Okung Will Miss At Least Week 1
Updates have been hard to come by on Chargers left tackle Russell Okung. Okung has been sidelined all offseason, and it’s never been clear exactly what is wrong.
Okung was placed on the NFI list last month with an undisclosed illness, and Chargers GM Tom Telesco said he had been dealing with a “pretty serious medical issue” since June. At the time it was reported that he could miss all of training camp, and that’s exactly what happened. Now we have confirmation that he’ll miss regular season time, as Telesco said recently that Okung will not be ready for Week 1, via Eric D. Williams of ESPN.com (Twitter link).
Further, Telesco said that he’d have “a better update on Okung’s health status in a couple weeks.” It sounds like there’s a good chance Okung isn’t back anytime soon. Obviously this isn’t good news for the Chargers, as they’re looking to follow-up on last year’s strong 12-4 campaign. Los Angeles has already dealt with some tough injury luck, as star safety Derwin James will be sidelined for a few months with a foot issue.
Okung signed a four-year, $53MM deal with the Chargers in 2017, and he made the Pro Bowl that year. He’s started 30 games for them the past couple of years, and his absence will be a huge downgrade to Philip Rivers‘ offensive line. The Chargers will now move forward with Sam Tevi, Trenton Scott, and Trey Pipkins as their top three tackles. None of them are particularly inspiring options.
Colts, Texans, Browns Lead NFL In Cap Space
On Tuesday morning, the NFL released a report of every team’s cap space. The total number accounts for the top-51 cap numbers on every team’s roster. Therefore, these numbers will naturally change before next week as teams set their 53-man rosters (although the 52nd- and 53rd-ranked cap numbers (and beyond) for each team will hardly change anything).
It’s also worth noting that there have been a handful of extensions, trades, signings, and cuts since this report was released. However, there weren’t any significant moves that would drastically alter these rankings.
Why are these numbers important at this time of year? Well, rosters will be trimmed on Saturday, meaning an influx of players will hit the open market. While we can’t imagine any roster casualties earning a lucrative contract from a new team, these numbers can help illustrate the monetary advantage one organization has over another. These numbers are also useful in regards to any potential trades or extensions.
With help from TheMMQB.com’s Albert Breer on Twitter, we’ve listed the league’s cap space totals (as of Tuesday morning) below:
- Indianapolis Colts: $56.6MM
- Houston Texans: $37.0MM
- Cleveland Browns: $34.6MM
- Dallas Cowboys: $26.1MM
- Tennessee Titans: $26.0MM
- San Francisco 49ers: $25.5MM
- Buffalo Bills: $23.3MM
- Miami Dolphins: $22.1MM
- Chicago Bears: $22.1MM
- Washington Redskins: $21.7MM
- Detroit Lions: $21.5MM
- Kansas City Chiefs: $21MM
- Cincinnati Bengals: $19.7MM
- Seattle Seahawks: $19.5MM
- Philadelphia Eagles: $18.6MM
- Jacksonville Jaguars: $18.2MM
- Oakland Raiders: $17.3MM
- Los Angeles Chargers: $16.4MM
- Green Bay Packers: $15.2MM
- New York Jets: $14.9MM
- New England Patriots: $14.1MM
- Baltimore Ravens: $13.4MM
- New Orleans Saints $7.5MM
- Carolina Panthers $5.9MM
- Los Angeles Rams $5.6MM
- New York Giants $5.5MM
- Pittsburgh Steelers $4.9MM
- Minnesota Vikings $4.7MM
- Arizona Cardinals $4.7MM
- Denver Broncos $4.4MM
- Tampa Bay Buccaneers $4.3MM
- Atlanta Falcons $3.4MM
Latest On Chargers, Melvin Gordon
The holdout of Chargers running back Melvin Gordon is expected to continue into the season, sources tell Ian Rapoport of NFL.com (on Twitter). At this stage, contract talks have not progressed as he hoped, and Gordon plans to train in Florida for the foreseeable future. 
Gordon can’t sit out the entire season — or at least, he can’t sit out the entire season if he wants to become a free agent next spring (which he does). If Gordon doesn’t report by November 29, he won’t be eligible to play during the 2019 campaign. At that point, his contract would toll: his $5.605MM salary would simply carry over to 2020, and he’d remain under the Chargers’ control.
Gordon has simultaneously said that he’d like to remain with Los Angeles and formally requested a trade. Meanwhile, “mounting pessimism” exists that Gordon and the Chargers will strike any sort of deal before the regular season gets underway. The Chargers are reportedly offering Gordon something in the neighborhood of $10MM annually, but the former first-round pick is looking for an additional $2-3MM per season.
Gordon, 26, has averaged 907 yards and seven touchdowns on the ground during his four-year career. He’s averaged 46 catches, 395 yards, and three scores via the passing game during that same timeframe. The Wisconsin product was named to the Pro Bowl in both 2016 and 2018.