Despite bringing the National Champion Jim Harbaugh as the HC, the Chargers are losing talent left and right, partly due to their bad cap situation. This off-season has seen the movement of players at an unprecedented scale, so it is not surprising that social media is filled with posts with heartfelt goodbyes from players to their former teammates and clubs.
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While no one expects football players to be intellectual and word smiths, fans expect them to at least express their feelings about the fans, club, and teammates from heart, without using help from others. One of Justin Herbert’s teammates Kenneth Murray Jr. said his goodbyes to the club and landed himself in hot water when a curious fan pointed out that he had used Artificial Intelligence, ChatGPT to bid his teammates adieu.
The Chargers declined an $11.72 million fifth-year option in Murray Jr’s contract, making him a free agent in 2024. He signed a 2-year, $15,500,000 contract with the Tennessee Titans. He will earn an average annual salary of $7.7 million.
Murray wrote a heavily worded goodbye on Instagram, expressing his gratitude to the organization for believing in him. He talked about memories and friendships he made along the way. Kenneth thanked the franchise and his teammates for making his journey memorable but now it’s time to move forward.
A cheeky Chargers fan on X ran the caption on an AI detection site, and it came out positive. His research revealed that over 98% of Linebacker’s words were generated by ChatGPT AI.
The Chargers were one of the teams with the worst salary cap situation in the league and have rectified it by releasing or trading some of their most important players.
The Chargers are Suffering from Bad Front-Office Management
Before they made all the cuts and changes to the contracts, the Chargers were nearly $40 million over the cap even with the NFL increasing the salary cap by $30 million. However, they boosted their cap space up to $29.1 million as per Spotrac. However, it was their offence that has to pay the price for their mismanagement and bloated salaries. They have most players with guaranteed money in their contracts.
As per Spotrac, the Bolts have lowered the base salary of Center Corey Linsley from $11.5 million to $1.2 million for post-6/1 Release. They released linebacker Eric Kendricks clearing $6.5 million and waived Tackle Andrew Trainer and CB A.J. Uzodinma. Releasing star Receiver Mike Williams was enough to clear $20 million in cap space. Joey Bosa agreed to restructure his contract, saving $15 million in cap space
In the last 2 days, the Chargers completely changed the shape of their offense by releasing or trading Austin Ekeler and Gerald Everett. Keenan Allen was traded to the Bears for a fourth-round pick in 2024. Today their offense is – RB Gus Edwards, WRs Questin Johnston and Joshua Palmer, and TE Will Dissly- all backups and already part of the roster.
This isn’t the start that Harbaugh might have expected but this is what he did during his time with the 49ers. He built the squad from the ground up, brought in players that suited his system, and turned them into Super Bowl contenders. The organization gave him a 5-year contract with this in mind. The Bolts have all their picks in the draft and will be using them to get the best talent the draft offers. Unlike the other teams that finished bottom, they already have an established QB in Justin Herbert.
