Tom Telesco And The Chargers Just Aren't Good At The NFL Draft

The San Diego Chargers just aren’t very good at this whole “drafting” thing. The team’s general manager, Tom Telesco, was given a gift this year by having the third overall pick when he knew the top two players off the board would be quarterbacks. Obviously the Chargers are set at that spot, so he had a wide open draft board with a ton of talent laid out in front of him. So of course, he did what he always does and royally screwed it up.

Telesco took Ohio State’s Joey Bosa with the No. 3 pick, and while Bosa is a fine player, he is an incredibly awkward fit in San Diego’s 3-4 defense. At 6-foot-5 and 269 pounds, Bosa is not big enough right now to play defensive end in a 3-4, and with a 4.85 40-yard dash, he’s not fast enough to play outside linebacker. His ideal fit is as an end in a 4-3 scheme. So yeah, color me surprised with that pick.

Can Bosa add 20 pounds to his frame and become a 3-4 defensive end? Sure, but by doing so he would almost surely lose some of the explosiveness that made him special at Ohio State. And if the Chargers actually plan to use him as an outside linebacker in their base 3-4 set, he’s just not a fit. Besides, San Diego already has Melvin Ingram, Jerry Attaochu and Kyle Emanuel rotating at those spots. If they plan to use Bosa as an end in their “sub-package” where they use four down linemen, that means one of a group of Manti Te’o, Denzel Perryman, Ingram, Attaochu and Emanuel will be on the bench. It’s just an odd choice all around, especially when the team had clear holes in the secondary and a need for another true 3-4 defensive end.

Before I hear from people saying “Bosa was one of the top ranked players on every list,” let’s remember that scouts and evaluators make those lists from the perspective of a player being used to the best of his ability. It will be very hard for the Chargers to do that with Bosa unless they are planning to change their defense. I like Bosa and I’m not ripping the kid or his ability, I’m ripping the fit and the decision to take a guy who doesn’t match the team’s scheme with the third overall pick in the draft. Bosa will be a decent player in San Diego even if he doesn’t get bigger or winds up playing out of position. But at No. 3, with none of the best players in the draft off the board, San Diego needed to get a franchise-altering kind of talent. The Chargers didn’t do that.

In his fourth year as San Diego’s GM, Telesco has shown he’s absolutely terrible at addressing his team’s most pressing needs with the right players through the draft. In 2015, he actually traded up to select a running back in the first round. That ball carrier wasn’t even Todd Gurley, it was the wildly disappointing Melvin Gordon. Gordon might wind up being a solid NFL player, but taking a running back in the first round is an incredibly inefficient use of draft resources, let alone giving away multiple picks to move up just two spots to select him.

Telesco also loves to reach for guys. He clearly thinks he knows something the rest of us don’t and every draft he goes out and grabs players far higher than most experts have them rated. In the past he has severely reached for: D.J. Fluker (No. 11 in 2013), the aforementioned Jeremiah Attaochu (No. 50 in 2014), Chris Watt (No. 89 in 2014), Ryan Carrethers (No. 165 in 2014), Gordon (No. 15 in 2015) and Craig Mager (No. 83 in 2015). That’s an insane list, especially because he gave up a fourth-rounder to move up just seven spots to take Attaochu.

Now look, some of those guys have been solid and may still turn out to have fine careers, but good general managers find ways to get the guys they want as late as possible and add picks, not subtract them.

I’m sure Bosa will be fine, but at No. 3 the Chargers had a chance to take a perfect fit and/or a super talent. They did neither, instead taking a high floor/low ceiling guy who may have maxed out his ability.