Genesis Smith

Isis Waxter, zero wins.

Genesis Smith, zero wins.

I mean, my God, we're throwing Tony Jefferson out there at slot cornerback, which is fine.

He's a safety.

Danny Gonzalez going to turn it

around without trading Stukes, without Genesis Smith, without Dalton Johnson? Multiple NFL quality guys out the door.

How is this guy going to turn it around again? Yeah.

How is he going to pull a rabbit out of the hat this time, guys? Surely the Arizona defense is not going to be as good.

Yeah, I mean, you're 100% right.

I think when you're cheering for a bad team, you want to look forward to next year's certain players, right? Like we just said, Travis Burke, Marla Wax, Genesis Smith, some of these younger players, you want to give them a shot to see what they have.

And you brought up Mahomes and Purdy a second ago, and that was very interesting that you said that because you didn't know I was going to pull this up.

Nope.

But with the Chargers, Mario...

We're trying to figure out ways to get better and look forward to next season because right now we don't have hopes of making the playoffs this season.

What do you give guys like Marlo Wax an opportunity, Genesis Smith an opportunity, and try to trade off veteran contracts, expiring contracts you can get maybe some draft picks for? I think that's what you should do to build towards next year.

I'm frustrated.

And you think about some of these rookie players that have played very well so far this year.

Think about guys like Akeem Mesidor, Nick Barrett, Genesis Smith.

They've done a very good job, one, developing a lot of these players, and two, having the same continuity that they had the past two years under Jesse Minter.

So if there's one bright spot to talk about on this team, it is the defense.

So I'm looking at the safety room and that's what led me to Elijah Molden, who obviously the Chargers signed to an extension to three year, eighteen point seven five million dollar contract in February.

of 2025 so you know there's a little bit of a contract situation there but with you know the you know drafting of genesis smith this this year and rj mickens also have derwin james in that room still have tony jefferson for probably at least the remainder of this year um i still they they have enough guys in that room to where uh if they need somebody who you know a team out there needs a safety that that shows some versatility that that can patrol the back end of your defense then I do feel like Elijah Molden makes a lot of

sense.

The other thing is, too, is he's had a really nice bounce back year.

Hasn't made many plays on the football, right? Doesn't have any pass breakups or zero interceptions, right, so far.

But he is someone I do think is a very good communicator on the back end and someone that is, you know, a really important part of this defense as far as keeping guys lined up.

But you have the emergence of Genesis Smith, who obviously it's come with some rookie growing pains, but there's obvious talent there.

Tony Derwin James should be back soon.

Now let's go back to week three where this kind of turned around for the Chargers.

The defense forced five turnovers including two interceptions by rookie safety Genesis Smith, a forced fumble by Khalil Mack, and another by Justin Aboibi.

And three of those came in Bill's territory and somehow the Chargers offense didn't turn any of them into touchdowns and the Chargers wound up losing that game 24-16.

So as we know this defense is not the reason why the Chargers sit at 0-6.