Bolts From The Blue
Throughout the 2025 NFL season, SB Nation’s Doug Farrar will write about the game’s Secret Superstars — those players whose performances might slip under the radar for whatever reasons. In this installment, we focus on Chargers edge-rusher Odafe Oweh, whose trade from Baltimore turned out to be one of those transactions that benefited everybody involved.
Tuesday marked one of the most impactful trade deadlines in recent NFL history, and perhaps one of the most impactful in the long run. But the trade that benefited both teams right off the bat in unexpected ways happened very much under the radar nearly a month ago. On October 7, the Chargers traded defensive back Alohi Gilman to the Baltimore Ravens for edge-rusher Odafe Oweh — the rare Double-Harbaugh Swap — and both players have excelled in their new homes.
While Gilman has patrolled the deep third in Baltimore’s defense, allowing Kyle Hamilton to be a game-changing box player, Oweh, the Ravens’ first-round pick in 2021, may be playing the best ball of his career. That’s something to say for a guy who had 11 sacks and 55 total pressures in 2024, but what Oweh has done since hitting the Los Angeles area is quite something.
Since Week 6, Oweh’s four sacks ties him with multiple players for third-best in the league, and his 12 pressures on just 77 pass-rushing snaps is top 10, as well. While the great and hugely underrated Tuli Tuipulotu leads the team with seven sacks and 45 total pressures this season, Oweh has become the force multiplier this defense needed. With Tuipulotu, Khalil Mack, and Oweh at his disposal, defensive coordinator Jesse Minter can dial up some really interesting pressure concepts.
At the time of the trade, Jim Harbaugh made quite the comparison when it came to Oweh.
“To me, he’s a lot like Khalil Mack,” Harbaugh said. “Direct rusher, has speed, has dip, has ability to set the edge. Been a very good, productive player, young player right in the prime of his career. Those things and others.”
The trade was made when Mack was on injured reserve, but Tuipulotu was already excited at what Oweh could bring to the fronts with a healthy Mack.
“It just brings an extra threat, [an] extra person everybody has got to worry about,” Tuipulotu said. “It helps everybody out. When the offense is game-planning against one person, it opens stuff up for other people. That’s kind of what it is so when he comes in, especially when K-Mack comes back, we’ll be stacked.”
“We’ve just got to build chemistry, show him the standard of what it is here at the Chargers. I think it will be easy for him to catch on with the defense, because they run something similar in Baltimore. We’re not worried about him going out there and playing hard; we just have to go out there and play together.”
Well, that’s certainly happened. Oweh’s four sacks in a Chargers uniform have come out of some fascinating pressure...
