As the Los Angeles Chargers creep closer to their 2024 training camp opening on July 23, at The Bolt in El Segundo, California, the team’s roster is starting to come into focus. New coach Jim Harbaugh will be looking to build a team in his image, and that means some veterans currently on the team may not make it to Week 1 when the Chargers host the Las Vegas Raiders on Sunday, September 8. Here are the Chargers cut candidates to keep an eye on.
DJ Chark
The Chargers’ wide receiver depth chart is fascinating heading into training camp. Keenan Allen and Mike Williams, LA’s top two wideouts for the last seven years, are now gone. In their place are youngsters and unproved veterans who need to step up.
Quentin Johnston, Joshua Palmer, Derius Davis, and Simi Fehoko are the holdovers from last season, but while they were the team’s second, fourth, seventh, and ninth-leading WRs in 2023, the quartet combined for just 92 catches for 1,087 yards and five touchdowns.
The Chargers hope that with more opportunity and time to develop, at least Johnston, Palmer, and Davis will develop into more productive receivers next season. Johnston, the team’s first-round pick in 2023, is especially promising based on his high draft position.
Still, the team supplemented their incumbents by signing veteran free agent DJ Chark and drafting Georgia wide receiver Ladd McConkey in Round 2 and USC wideout Brenden Rice, the son of all-time-great WR Jerry Rice, in Round 7.
Assuming that Johnson, Palmer, Davis (the team’s primary kick returner, too), and the two drafted rookies make it, that leaves one spot for Chark or a host of rookies such as seventh-round pick Cornelius Johnson (who played for Harbaugh at Michigan last season) or undrafted rookies Leon Johnson III from Oklahoma State, Jaylen Johnson from East Carolina, Jaelen Gill from Fresno State, and Ohio State track star and the International Player Pathway Program’s Praise Olatoke.
As Harbaugh looks to build the Chargers from the Brandon Staley ashes, he may look to develop young talent that will serve him and the team well over the next several seasons as opposed to keeping Chark, a solid but unspectacular veteran playing on his fourth team in the last four seasons.
Alex Leatherwood
NFL Draft-heads will remember the 17th pick in the 2021 draft when the Las Vegas Raiders pulled a typically head-scratching move and took Alabama offensive lineman Alex Leatherwood.
On one hand, the former Crimson Tide blocker was a super-athletic lineman with “positional versatility.” The other way to read that is Leatherwood was a player who got by on his athleticism in college and is a bit of a tweener, stuck between a tackle or a guard size-wise.
Regardless, most draft experts had Leatherwood as a second-round pick and it was a complete shock when the Raiders took him in the top 20.
With that draft position, a starting spot followed the next season, and Leatherwood was terrible at right tackle and then right guard for the Chargers’ AFC West rivals. He was one of the worst guards in the league, according to PFF, grading out as a 44.9 overall and a 29.0 on pass protection. Leatherwood also gave up a league-leading 65 pressures and was third in the league in O-line penalties.
The Raiders amazingly released Leatherwood after just one season, and he was picked up by the Bears where he played three games. The OG spent last season on the Browns practice squad, and then the Chargers signed him this offseason.
Having a player who has started games as a guard and a tackle can be incredibly valuable as a team’s eighth or ninth offensive lineman. However, there are no signs Leatherwood has improved his technique or skills along the line, so he is probably one of the odd men out in Chargers training camp.
Left tackle Rashawn Slater, left guard Zion Johnson, center Bradley Bozeman, right guard Jamaree Salyer, and right tackle (and 2023 first-round pick) Joe Alt are pretty much set in stone as Jim Harbaugh’s starting five.
After that, the team has tackles Trey Pipkins III and Foster Sarell, and Brenden Jaimes and Jordan McFadden at guard. That will likely make up the nine, with undrafted free agent rookies Karsen Barnhart and Bucky Williams having a chance to slide into the mix with a good camp.
Still just 25, Leatherwood may get another chance elsewhere, but with the importance Harbaugh puts on his offensive line, the first-round bust will not be in LA for long.
Donald Parham Jr.
Longtime Chargers tight end Donald Parham Jr. is facing a serious battle for his roster spot this training camp with two veteran free agents and two undrafted rookies coming in to take his position.
Last year, Parham had his best statistical season, with 27 catches for 285 yards, but obviously, TE was a position group Harbaugh was looking to improve. That’s why the team signed former Seattle Seahawks TE Will Dissly and former Carolina Panthers TE Hayden Hurst.
The franchise also signed Zach Heins out of South Dakota State and Luke Benson from Georgia Tech. Heins is specifically interesting when it comes to Parham as the 6-foot-6, 264-pound youngster is similar to the 6-foot-8, 237-pound veteran.
Dissly and Hurst aren’t Travis Kelce by any means, but they are professional, well-rounded tight ends who are good in-line blockers as well as pass catchers. They also seem to be two coveted targets of Harbaugh. So if they make the team, there is likely only one spot left on the Chargers roster for another TE.
Furthermore, the TE3 on an NFL roster is a player the team usually needs to help on special teams. UDFAs like Heins or Benson are likely more fitting for that role than Parham, who hasn’t played a special teams snap in his last two seasons.
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