Laremy Tunsil is a number of things.

He is a future NFL tackle with elite potential, the scouting community agrees. He is a quick-footed lineman who shows balance and length in his pass sets. He is the type of prospect not thought to come along every year, a big man who seems poised to protect the blind-side edge for the next decade.

Tunsil may be available for the Chargers in the April 28-30 draft.

If selected, he’d become a messy fit.


The former Mississippi tackle was on the shortlist of options the Titans figured to entertain if they drafted first overall. That shortlist was blown to smithereens Thursday when they and the Rams announced a blockbuster trade. Tunsil could slip to the Chargers if the Browns bypass him at No. 2. And so, it is worth revisiting one last time how Tunsil fits into the situation San Diego has now.

It’s not clean.

Joe Barksdale signed a four-year, $23.5 million contract last month. He is entrenched at right tackle. Meanwhile, left tackle King Dunlap signed a four-year, $28 million contract in 2015. He followed with an adverse season, the durability concerns that have overshadowed his career resurfacing via a concussion and then high ankle sprain, the latter of which sidelined him nearly all of the final nine games.

In March, the Chargers had a decision to make.


An emergency exit door was part of Dunlap’s 2015 contract. On March 11, the third day of the 2016 league year, it was stipulated the team must fully guarantee Dunlap’s $4.5 million salary if he remained on the roster. The team, uneasy with his injury history, could release Dunlap by then, not paying him another cent. The drawbacks were twofold. Not only would the Chargers part with a vaunted pass protector when healthy, but they’d create a glaring O-line vacancy, one that may force decision makers into drafting a left tackle early, likely Tunsil or Notre Dame’s Ronnie Stanley.

The door was left unopened.

The Chargers restructured Dunlap’s contract instead, turning $1.2 million of his $4.5 million base salary into playing time incentives. They also re-signed Chris Hairston, a swing tackle who played everywhere but center in 2015. His two-year, $2.9 million contract includes $550,000 fully guaranteed.

So, if the Chargers are to draft Tunsil on April 28, they’ll do so accepting that either their No. 3 selection will begin the season on the bench — hardly appealing for coaches with jobs on the line — or Dunlap, a player with $3.3 million guaranteed, will. If Dunlap sits on the bench, he’ll sit knowing that with every game he watches, he grows less likely to earn back his $1.2 million in incentives. Meanwhile, Hairston becomes difficult to carry as a fourth tackle. There goes $550,000.


And oh, by the way, for all of their offensive line struggles in 2015, pass protection is not the area about which the Chargers are most concerned. It’s run blocking. Tunsil projects as an elite pass protector. His work in the run game is very much developing. Left tackle also is a less significant position in Mike McCoy’s offense than it was under Norv Turner when the likes of Vincent Jackson and Malcom Floyd were streaking downfield as part of a vertical attack.

New addition Travis Benjamin certainly can stretch the field. But the collective route development time for the likes of Keenan Allen, Stevie Johnson and Antonio Gates is far more expedient today than in the Turner offense; the ball leaves Philip Rivers’ hand quicker, meaning linemen hold their blocks less longer.

If the Chargers skip Tunsil, he could become another thing.

The one that got way.


Should he prove to be a stud and the Chargers skip him for someone who fits better but ultimately busts, well, no one in five years will remember Dunlap’s $3.3 million guaranteed or the aforementioned roster logjam Tunsil would have created. Even next year, if Dunlap has a season that resembles his last, the Chargers very well could be searching for a new left tackle. Perhaps Tunsil by then is en route to becoming the next Joe Thomas.

Maybe Tunsil is the right pick at No. 3. Maybe not. Hindsight, as it does every draft, will have final say.

But today, for how he fits the Chargers’ roster in comparison to a defensive player, Tunsil is the messy one, and it’s not close.