The Chargers remain about $25 million over the 2024 salary cap, with less than six hours to go before every NFL team has to be under at the start of the league year.
That makes it highly likely that at least one, and possibly more than one, of four key players will get cut in the next few hours: Khalil Mack, Joey Bosa, Keenan Allen and Mike Williams. All four of those players have non-guaranteed base salaries of at least $15 million, so they’re the natural choices for a team in rough cap shape to cut.
The Chargers may want to trade one or more of those four players, but the problem is that they have to be under the salary cap before the start of the league year, and players can only be traded after the start of the league year. If the Chargers want to trade one or more of those four, they’ll need to make other moves to get under the cap first.
Teams can always find ways to get under the salary cap, but those ways are painful, and involve pushing more cap space into future years. New Chargers General Manager Joe Hortiz and new Chargers head coach Jim Harbaugh may want to make a clean break with the past in Year One and not put themselves in a position where they’re continuing to deal with the fallout of the bad situation they inherited in future years.
So expect the Chargers to make a clean break from the past, and move on from some of their best players today.