Tom Telesco, accomplished NFL executive with the Los Angeles Chargers and most recently, the Las Vegas Raiders, sat down with Betway Insider to discuss the most intriguing storylines from the 2025 season. From his 11 years as a general manager, Telesco drafted seven players that combined for 17 pro bowlers, most notably Justin Herbert, Joey Bosa, Derwin James and Keenan Allen among others. After stepping away from the game for the first time in 35 years, he has plenty to riff on about the latest NFL season.
The Chargers had a gritty season, fighting through injuries to win 11 games and and make the playoffs. How would you evaluate their season?
Gritty play is Jim Harbaugh’s MO. They had a lot of injuries this year, mostly on the offensive line, which is just hard to sustain. They got to the point where they were using their fourth, fifth and sixth tackles. There aren’t that many starting calibre offensive tackles to go around in the NFL.
Justin Herbert had an excellent year. He’s one of the best quarterbacks in the league, but he took some hits. They have a lot of cash moving into next year in free agency, and I’m sure they’re going to address the offensive line, specifically the interior. The two tackles are outstanding – Joe Alt and Rashawn Slater – and they’ll both be back this year and hopefully healthy for 17 games.
Jesse Minter did a tremendous job defensively, and he’s done a tremendous job there the last couple of years and now he’s the head coach of the Ravens. That’s kind of how the Chargers had to play this past year, because offensively they had a hard time moving the ball with their injuries.
I think next year you’re going to see a lot of additions on offense, putting more talent around Justin Herbert, and the arrow is still really up with that team.
How big a move was it for John Schneider to move away from his quarterback in Geno Smith and sign Sam Darnold, who went on to win the Super Bowl.
Just a huge move, incredible foresight because I was with Geno Smith for one year with the Chargers and he has a lot of skills. He went to Seattle and he fit in really well with Pete Carroll and played outstanding football, but contracts come into it. It just looks like they couldn’t come to an agreement.
Sam Darnold had a great year with the Vikings, but the question was, was this a one-year wonder or is he a late bloomer? Sam always had talent, but the Seahawks still had to step out and make this huge move from one franchise quarterback to the next.
They took a pretty big swing and it really paid off. The one thing with Sam has always been the big errors, the strip sack fumbles, the interceptions. We saw a little bit of that this year, but when they got in the playoffs, he protected the football all the way through. When he protects the football, he’s a top-five quarterback. So just a tremendous job by John Schneider to kind of pivot off a quarterback that that was solid in Geno Smith to Sam Darnold. They put all of their eggs in that basket, and Sam really came through and performed for them.
Kellen Moore, Brandon Staley and Doug Nussmeier were all with you in LA and are now coaching the New Orleans Saints. How pleased were you to see them start to turn things around last season?
Yeah, it was pretty cool this year. Look, they’re in a rebuild, there’s no doubt, so they’re still kind of turning over the roster. But the longer the season went on, the better they played. It was really cool to see them hit on Tyler Shough, the quarterback that they took in the second round. I was only with Kellen Moore and Doug Nussmeier for one year but both of them are really, really good. They work really well together. Kellen Moore just has a great offensive mind and he’s really flexible with his personnel. It’s not like he has to have a certain style of player in each spot, and if you can’t find it, he can’t run his offense. It’s the opposite of that. You’ll go and find him good players, and he’ll find a spot for them in his offense.
They put a lot of resources in their offensive line, but they’re still kind of building out their team. But the offense came along last year and then defensively, same thing. They didn’t have a ton of talent, but the defense played really well late in the year and forced a lot of turnovers. They played really well on third down, which is the money down in this league. And Brandon has always had great packages disguise coverages and make it hard on offenses.
I think they’re definitely a team on the way up. I do think the future is bright there, and the biggest thing is they found a quarterback in the second round that could be their franchise guy. You pair that guy with Doug Nussmeier and Kellen Moore and some really good things can happen.
You recently said that if you were a GM in need of a quarterback, 10 first-round picks wouldn’t be enough to pass up the opportunity to draft a good one. Is that the case this year?
There’s no price for me. If you’re there and you need a franchise quarterback, you have to take him. They could get a huge package of players and picks to move down, which could certainly help them build out the rest of their team. But then who’s going to play quarterback for you this year? Next year, you don’t know where you’re going to be drafting and you don’t know which quarterbacks will be available. I think it’d be hard to say, “we’ll just draft a quarterback next year.”
There’s just no package, at least for me, that you could put together that would make me pass on a franchise quarterback there.
The current Buffalo Bills team haven’t been to a Super Bowl but have been close for several years now. What should they do this offseason to get over the hump?
They’ve been so close. To me, it’s really been more about the defense getting over the hump. The offense has really performed at a high level consistently for a number of years. Defensively, they’ve just not been getting that key stop when they need it.
You saw a little bit of that this year on defense. They had their moments, but they just weren’t quite there yet, especially on third down.
As you look into next year, obviously you want to keep giving Josh Allen as many weapons as possible, and I’m sure they’re going to address the receiver group, either in free agency or the draft.
They have some good defensive players, but if they can add a big-time playmaker somewhere in that front seven to help close out games for them, that could push them over the top.
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