NFL Network draft analyst Daniel Jeremiah addressed the possibility of the Chargers trading down from their No. 5 overall draft pick in his NFL Scouting Combine preview press conference.
“I think if you’re the Chargers and you want to trade down, you’re praying that the fourth quarterback emerges from now to the draft,” Jeremiah said.
“I think when it’s all said and done, it feels like it to me that you’re to have the three quarterbacks go 1, 2, 3 when we get down to it, whether that’s New England taking one or either them or Washington trading out and somebody coming up. It just feels to me talking to people around the league that seems to be the expectation.”
Jeremiah doesn’t see a scenario where any team trades up to get one of the highly touted wide receivers or tackles–only a quarterback, likely Oregon’s Bo Nix or Michigan’s J.J. McCarthy.
“So if you are looking at who you are going to trade for, well, I don’t think—because there’s those three top receivers, I don’t know that anybody is coming up for one of those guys,” Jeremiah said. “The tackle depth is really good, so even though you have players worthy of trading up for, there’s so many of them that I don’t think that would be the case.”
Jeremiah mentions the Giants, Falcons and Titans as potential landing spots for Nix and McCarthy since they likely want to draft a quarterback.
It wouldn’t be surprising to see that four of the first five picks of the 2024 NFL draft are quarterbacks, according to Jeremiah. Essentially, there’s a good chunk of teams that would want to trade up with the Chargers to draft their guy.
This would be good for Los Angeles, as they’re in a position where they need to load up on as much talent as possible since they’re currently in a spot where they aren’t going to be able to load up on big-name free agents, given their salary cap situation.