Bolts From The Blue
The Chargers needed to improve their interior offensive line this offseason in a big way and no one would have been surprised if they had replaced all three starters from the 2024 lineup in Zion Johnson, Bradley Bozeman, and Trey Pipkins. However, the team only wound up replacing Pipkins with former Eagles guard Mekhi Becton. An improvement of any kind is still an improvement, but the same worries that the group ended the 2024 season with are still around with Bozeman and Johnson back in the saddle for another go-round.
Unless there’s some kind of marked improvement by those two in 2025, the Chargers are almost sure to replace both next offseason. With that in mind, the analysts who are already putting together 2026 mock drafts are pairing the Chargers with some of the best, if not THE best, interior linemen in next year’s class.
In the first 2026 mock this year by CBS Sports’ Mike Renner, he has the Chargers going all in on their center of the future by selecting Auburn’s Connor Lew with the 18th pick in the draft. Renner has the 6’3, 303-pound Lew as the top center prospect in the class and believes he’d be a welcomed addition up front for the Bolts.
“Jim Harbaugh won’t stop until he has the baddest offensive line in the NFL. And when Rashawn Slater was healthy, they were going to be pretty darn close. Center is still a weakish link with Bradley Bozeman there, so the Chargers add the best center prospect in the class in Connor Lew.“
Lew claimed the starting center job for the Tigers halfway through his true freshman season following an injury to veteran Avery Jones. He finished the year with multiple Freshman All-American honors and parlayed that into a strong year as a sophomore this past season where he allowed just nine pressures all year.
By the end of the 2025 season, barring any injuries, Lew will be a three-year starter at center in the SEC with exceptional movement skills and a high football IQ. Those don’t grow on trees all that often and it would be smart for Jim Harbaugh and Joe Hortiz to consider adding such a prospect if the draft ends up falling that way.
