Ian Hartitz dives into the Los Angeles Chargers team preview and fantasy football outlook for the 2025 NFL season.

Year 1 of the Jim Harbaugh era in Los Angeles went quite well. Sure, getting bounced in the Wild Card round wasn't ideal, but 11 wins for a team that previously hadn't cleared 10 since 2018 isn't too shabby!

Los Angeles Chargers in 2024:

  • Points per game: 23.6 (11th)
  • EPA per dropback: +0.13 (12th)
  • EPA per rush: -0.08 (18th)
  • Points per game against: 17.7 (1st)

Of course, the Bolts are hopeful that 2024 was simply the beginning of bigger and better things to come. This year's squad features a new-and-improved backfield as well as some key free agent additions on both sides of the football. Put it all together, and PFF has ranked this roster as the 12th best in the league ahead of 2025.

This brings us to today's goal: Answering key (mostly fantasy-related) questions about the Chargers ahead of their 2025 season.

As always: It's a great day to be great.

Los Angeles Chargers 2025 Fantasy Football And Team Preview

What sort of ceiling can Justin Herbert still reach in fantasy football land?

Any slander toward Herbert's real-life ability will not be tolerated in these streets. The Chargers' 6-foot-6, 235 pound franchise QB combines a rocket launcher for a right arm with plenty of mobility (seriously!)—this combination regularly forces defenses to account for every blade of grass on the football field.

And yet, we haven't quite seen the 27-year-old talent recapture his early-career excellence when it comes to racking up fantasy football points in recent years.

Herbert fantasy points per game:

  • 2020: 22.2 (QB7)
  • 2021: 22.4 (QB2)
  • 2022: 16.4 (QB15)
  • 2023: 17.9 (QB10)
  • 2024: 16.8 (QB13)

The primary culprit has been a dropoff in passing TD rate: Herbert posted quality 5.2% and 5.7% marks in 2020 and 2021, but hasn't cleared 4.6% since. Throw in up-and-down rushing production due to playing through various painful injuries, and it's been awhile since the former sixth overall pick has been a must-start QB in fantasy land.

So will 2025 be any different? I'm not so sure. While this was a surprisingly neutral team in terms of dropback rate over expected, the team's willingness to sign Najee Harris and use their first-round pick on Omarion Hampton sure seems to point toward more of a run-first approach next season. After all, their status as the 11th-most run-heavy offense in terms of total rush attempts was the lowest mark of OC Greg Roman's career.

Justin Herbert Fantasy Football Outlook

Fantasy Life Projections have Herbert ranked 16th in pass attempts and 15th in carries at the position. He needs high-end efficiency and TD regression in order to return to early-career heights—those are bets that the Fantasy Life rankers aren't quite willing to make in a major way.

That said, top-15 standing feels like the floor here—I'm the highest of any ranker on Herbert (QB13) and do prefer him over less-proven guys like Drake Maye and Trevor Lawrence going in a similar range of early drafts. Here's to hoping the injury gods spare Herbert from his usual nicks and bruises—his career-high 306 rushing yards last season came despite dealing with plantar fasciitis in the preseason and an early-season high ankle sprain.

Is Omarion Hampton poised to see a Day 1 workhorse role?

The Chargers used the 22nd overall pick to select the North Carolina product. And for good reason: Hampton managed to rack up north of 1,500 rushing yards while scoring 15+ TDs on the ground in each of the past two seasons. Over the past 10 years the only other college players to accomplish this feat on more than one occasion: Jonathan Taylor, Travis Etienne, Dalvin Cook, Donnel Pumphrey, and Lamar Jackson (lol).

Accordingly, Hampton grades out as the second-best RB in this class in Fantasy Life Director of Analytics Dwain McFarland's Rookie RB Super Model, comping favorably to guys like Breece Hall and Jonathan Taylor in terms of their prospect profile (not necessarily play style). Fantasy Life draft expert Thor Nystrom also has Hampton as his RB2 in this class, and he comped the 22-year-old talent to none other than Deuce McAllister!

Thor's explanation of the comp:

"Hampton reminds me of former Saints RB Deuce McAllister, who measured into his NFL Combine at 6-foot-1, 222 pounds and ran a 4.41 40 with a 37.5” vertical jump. Hampton ran a 4.46 40 with a 38” vertical jump at 221 pounds.

Hampton has the same upright running style as McAllister, with similar foot speed between the tackles. He has the same ability to contort and slither through creases into space.

Hampton is a hard-charging north/south runner who does not mess around behind the line. It’s an aggressive ethos—particularly for the zone-blocking system that he played in at North Carolina—that has its positives and negatives."

Of course, it's not a given that Hampton immediately garners a true every-down workhorse role due to the presence of Najee Harris, who signed a one-year, $5.25 million deal with the Chargers back in March.

I know what you're thinking. “Najee Harris? REALLY?”

Hear me out: Let’s play a game!

  • Player A: 3.9 yards per carry, 2.9 yards after contact per carry, 20.7% missed tackles forced per rush, 5.8% explosive run rate
  • Player B: 3.9 yards per carry, 2.7 yards after contact per rush, 15.1% missed tackles forced per rush, 5% explosive run rate

Player A is Harris from 2021 to 2024 with the Steelers, and Player B is David Montgomery from 2019 to 2022 with the Bears. Note that the latter back’s offensive line actually vastly outproduced the former when looking at rank in yards before contact per carry (Chicago ranked 15th vs. Pittsburgh’s 29th).

Now, it hasn't all been ideal: Harris put forward a not-so-great (read: bad) combination of explosive play and success rate last season. He doesn't have the sort of provocative one-hitter quitter home run speed that gets the people going, and Jaylen Warren regularly looked like the better back over the years.

And yet, as a wise man once said: The best ability is availability, and Harris has never missed a game while continuously proving to be a handful in one-on-one situations. Large volume be damned: You'll be surprised at how solid his 2024 highlights really were.

Nobody is expecting Harris to lead this backfield, but Fantasy Life Projections do think enough of the ex-Steeler to have the touches split at 236 (Hampton) compared to 157 (Harris). Reminder: Greg Roman watched rookie year J.K. Dobbins average six yards per carry … and still wound up giving Gus Edwards more total rush attempts (144 vs. 134) while also keeping old man Mark Ingram (72) plenty involved as well. That was then and this is now (there is also a draft capital difference between Dobbins and Hampton), but I do struggle to see a workhorse 80% or higher snap role emerging in an offense that wasn't overly willing to just leave one RB on the field last season.

Bottom line: I'm very OK spending a top-five pick on Hampton in dynasty land, but I haven't been a consistent buyer at his offseason RB15 ADP—cheaper backs like Chuba Hubbard, Joe Mixon and Kenneth Walker profile as more likely workhorse options in offenses not totally expected to suck. My RB19, don't completely fade Hampton, but he might need high-end efficiency as a rookie in order to outweigh less touches than other top-20 backs.

As for Harris: Expecting copious standalone value feels iffy, although the potential to win the goal-line role and siphon away 10-15 combined carries and targets per week at least makes FLEX value a possibility. Throw in legit high-end handcuff upside should the rookie miss any action, and I consider Najee to be a quality later-round "FLEX with benefits" option in the same mold as Rhamondre Stevenson and Jordan Mason.

Question 3: How high is too high to draft Ladd McConkey this year?

Well, there are second-half booms and there are second-half BOOMS: McConkey's 19.2 PPR points per game from Week 8 through the playoffs was good for WR5 status behind only Ja'Marr Chase, Mike Evans, Tee Higgins, and Amon-Ra St. Brown.

Friends don't let friends mistake McConkey as a one-trick-pony slot maven: This guy looked every bit as good as fellow stud rookies Malik Nabers and Brian Thomas Jr. last season.

 

We're talking about GREAT company when analyzing the 2024 second-rounder's rookie comps in yards per route run since 2014. And hell, even removing the rookie qualifier from the equation still leaves McConkey among the league's most efficient options already!

While truly elite heights could be tough in an offense expected to lean towards the run, Ladd still projects for a solid 126 targets—the 14th most among all WRs ahead of next season.

It's probably wishful thinking to expect TOO much production from anyone else in this passing game, but the next best contenders would be …

  • Tre Harris: The team's 2025 second-round pick racked up an absurd 1,030 yards in just eight games during his final season at Ole Miss. No. 1 in the class in yards per route run vs. both man and zone, the primary concern surrounding the 6-foot-2, 205-pound 23-year-old talent is the at-times gimmicky nature of Lane Kiffin's offense (look what his teammate did once he was out) as well as his meh speed (4.54-second 40-yard dash) when projecting him to the professional level.
  • Mike Williams: Back in Los Angeles after forgettable stints with the Jets and Steelers in 2024, Big Mike did post WR13 and WR21 finishes in PPR points per game in his last two years catching passes with Herbert. Of course, that was before tearing his ACL in 2023, and the veteran will turn 31 in October. It'd make sense if that familiarity leads to some solid contested-catch moments, but I struggle to get too excited after he caught just nine passes in 13 games inside a Steelers offense dying to find a higher-upside No. 2 WR last season.
  • Quentin Johnston: Still apparently a locked-in starter despite the team's various offseason additions at the position. Give the former first-rounder credit for his 55-711-8 2024 campaign (he scored more PPR points per game than Marvin Harrison Jr.!), although more than a few of the big plays were of the busted-coverage variety. His last two games of the season (13-186-0 followed by 0-0-0) demonstrates the reality that despite some legit upside, the weekly floor here remains scary low.

Ladd McConkey Fantasy Football Outlook

Ladd is my WR10 overall ahead of guys like A.J. Brown and Tyreek Hill. Youth, QB play, talent, and volume makes him someone I'm perfectly happy to target in the early-middle parts of Round 2.

I haven't gone out of my way to target these other guys due to the likelihood that we see a rotation of sorts in what figures to be a fairly run-heavy offense. Harris would get my dart out of the trio, and we shouldn't completely sleep on QJ again putting up WR4 numbers, but both profile as better best ball plays—it seems doubtful we'll ever feel overly good about slotting any of these complementary options into re-draft starting lineups without an injury to McConkey.

Are we sleeping on Will Dissly providing some late-round goodness?

The soon-to-be 29-year-old ex-Seahawk managed to turn in three top-10 PPR finishes last season on his way to working as the TE25 on a per-game basis. Maybe that was just the start of even bigger and better things to come?

I doubt it. Dissly wasn't even given a full-time role until Hayden Hurst was injured, and the consistency didn't even last due to something named Stone Smartt earning legit opportunities down the stretch.

While Hurst and Smartt are indeed off the roster ahead of 2025, the Chargers signed Tyler Conklin in free agency and used a fifth-round pick on pass-catching-friendly TE Oronde Gadsden. Another committee system feels likely inside an offense that only threw 108 total targets to the position last year in the first place (tied for 20th).

Bottom line: I'm cool throwing a fifth-round rookie draft dart at Gadsden, but otherwise? Pass.

Do the Chargers have one of the best backup QBs in the league?

Shoutout Taylor Heinicke! The journeyman went 12-11 as Washington's starting QB during the 2021-2023 seasons, memorably putting in a great Wild Card effort by racking up 352 total yards in a loss against Tom Brady and the Bucs back in January, 2021.

But still: Not really. Heinicke has the 12th most career wins (13) and 14th best yards per attempt rate (6.9) among the current 32 backup QBs. While past accomplishments don't necessarily mean any given clipboard holder is better in the year 2025, the likes of Jimmy Garoppolo (Rams), Kirk Cousins (Falcons), Jameis Winston (Giants), Andy Dalton (Panthers), and Marcus Mariota (Commanders) stand out as the top-five most proven backup QBs at the moment.

Prediction For The Chargers 2025 Season

The Chargers enter 2025 with a 9.5 win total. Reminder: Harbaugh has won 13, 11, 12, 8, and most recently 11 games during his time as an NFL head coach.

You can probably guess where I'm going here: Give me the OVER for a team that had an extra offseason to spruce up the line of scrimmage and continues to employ one of the most talented QBs in the league. My bold fantasy call: Ladd McConkey emerges as fantasy's highest-scoring second-year WR in half-PPR scoring.