With the Chargers stuck at 0-7 and now the NFL’s lone winless team, the trade chatter around their roster has picked up fast. At the center of it is Tuli Tuipulotu, a 24-year-old pass rusher whose play has made him look far more like a building block than a player on the block.
Tuipulotu has turned himself into one of the league’s more disruptive edge defenders, and that rise has only made the contract situation around him more complicated. He broke out in 2025 with 13 sacks, good for a top-six finish in the league, while also leading the Chargers in quarterback pressures and earning his first Pro Bowl selection.
He has kept producing this season even as the losses pile up around him. Through six games, Tuipulotu has three sacks, an interception, and two forced fumbles, the kind of stat line that keeps drawing attention no matter how ugly the team record gets.
The timing of his contract is what makes him especially interesting as the deadline nears. The former second-round pick from USC is in the final year of his rookie deal, with a base salary under $6 million, and he is set to become an unrestricted free agent in 2027 after extension talks went nowhere this offseason.
Those talks got heated enough that Tuipulotu held out at the start of training camp, and the number being discussed over the summer was reportedly north of $30 million per year. That kind of price tag changes the entire trade conversation. Any team that deals for him would be getting a young pass rusher in his prime, but it would also be taking on the reality of a huge second contract soon after.
That hasn’t stopped contenders from circling. National analysts have linked Tuipulotu to teams in need of pass-rush help, including the Cowboys, Seahawks, and Patriots, and he has even shown up inside the top five on at least one major deadline board.
Still, the Chargers don’t appear interested in moving him. League insiders have said the organization has shown little appetite to deal away any of its players, and Jim Harbaugh and Joe Hortiz reportedly aren’t ready to throw in the towel on a season that has gone off the rails.
That same resistance has already frustrated teams trying to pry away veterans like Khalil Mack, and it figures to be even stronger when it comes to Tuipulotu. Los Angeles also has the franchise tag as a fallback, which makes the idea of trading away a 24-year-old Pro Bowler feel even less likely for a front office that hasn’t shown any interest in signaling a rebuild.
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Justin Herbert Debate Just Took A Wild Turn For The Chargers
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Emmanuel Acho took the conversation in a far more extreme direction on his podcast, publicly floating the idea that Herbert could be underperforming on purpose or otherwise working against the Chargers. It is the kind of speculation that lands with a thud around a team already under pressure, and it only adds to the noise surrounding a season that has gone sideways fast while the coaching staff tries to steady the situation. [Read more 🡒]
Chargers Lost Season Puts Joe Hortiz Under Trade Deadline Pressure
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Justin Herbert still stands at the center of whatever the long-term plan becomes, which makes the next few weeks especially important for a roster that may need to be retooled around him. Veteran talent is the most obvious place to look for help in that process, and if Hortiz decides to lean into the future, the deadline could become less about chasing a miracle turnaround and more about extracting value from a lost year. [Read more 🡒]
Jim Harbaugh Sounds Ready To Shake Up The Chargers
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For a roster still looking for traction, the message is as much about accountability as it is about urgency. Harbaughs comments suggest the Chargers are treating this as a collective problem rather than a single weak link, and the next step is figuring out what changes actually move the needle before the season slips any further out of reach. [Read more 🡒]