Both Starting Tackles Enter Camp Uncertain, and the Chargers Don't Have a Clean Backup Plan

Joe Alt and Rashawn Slater are both listed as active heading into training camp, which is the good news. The less comfortable news is that both arrived at camp with enough uncertainty around them that the front office has spent the summer trying to figure out what the line looks like if one — or both — aren't ready for September. That's a contingency conversation no team wants to be having in August.

The timing matters. As I noted earlier this week, the left guard spot is already unsettled, with Trey Pipkins III the latest to join a three-man competition for a starting job. The tackle question compounds that. The depth chart behind Alt and Slater at the tackle spots runs through Travis Burke, Alex Harkey, and Isaiah World — names that are fine to have in a rotation but not names you want starting in Week 1 with Herbert behind them.

Herbert is good enough to manage a shaky pocket for stretches, but he threw 13 interceptions last season and the Chargers' margin for error is already thin. They won 11 games in 2025 largely by executing in close moments; that kind of season doesn't survive a pass protection breakdown that puts the quarterback under consistent pressure. My read is that getting Alt and Slater healthy and practicing in full is the single most important development of the next two weeks — more than any position competition, more than any depth signing. Everything else the offense wants to do runs through those two.