Aside from left tackle, the other position the Chargers need to address in this year’s draft is cornerback.
The past few seasons under former defensive coordinator Gus Bradley, the corners were primarily deployed in zone coverage.
With head coach Brandon Staley calling the shots now, his defensive backs are going to be versatile, and will be asked to do more than just playing off the line of scrimmage.
At Friday’s media availability general manager Tom Telesco said that the team is looking for corners who can perform at a high level no matter what coverages they’re in.
“We’re looking for corners who can play a variety of coverages,” Telesco said. We don’t want a corner who can only play zone-coverage, and we don’t want a corner who can only play man-coverage. That gives us some versatility to play a little bit of man and zone and keep people on their heels.”
In the first-round, South Carolina’s Jaycee Horn is seen as an ideal corner for Staley’s scheme.
But if the team was to take a tackle in Round 1, they could still benefit from a corner like Georgia’s Tyson Campbell or Eric Stokes, Syracuse’s Ifeatu Melifonwu, Michigan’s Ambry Thomas, Stanford’s Paulson Adebo, among others in Rounds 2 or 3.
Telesco was also asked about the state of the team’s edge defenders.
“As we sit here today, it looks pretty good. Obviously, I’m not going to talk about Joey. That one’s pretty much self-explanatory. And I think you guys pretty much know how we feel about Chenna.
I think Chenna can be a high-level player in this league. We love how he plays. And it was great to add Kyler to the group, both as a pass rusher, play the run, play special teams, proven production in this league. So pretty happy there.”
Uchenna Nwosu enters the season as a starting edge defender. Joey Bosa will play on the “edge” of the defense, but will move around a lot. Kyler Fackrell along with Emeke Egbule will come on the field as rotational pass-rushers.
To round out the group, Staley should be able to find one of his “guys”, one who’s lengthy and explosive with the ability to set the edge versus tight ends and dominate the edge in the run game.
If the position is addressed in the early rounds, Washington’s Joe Tryon, Texas’ Joseph Ossai, Penn State’s Jayson Oweh and Houston’s Payton Turner make sense.
In the middle rounds, Tulane’s Cameron Sample, Northern Iowa’s Elerson Smith, Florida State’s Joshua Kaindoh, Janarius Robinson and Iowa’s Chauncey Golston could also be targets.
“You can never have enough pass-rushers and corners,” Telesco added.