Appearing on The Rich Eisen Show, Pelissero raised the idea unprompted. "Right now, the LA Chargers are 0-2. You look at their upcoming schedule, if they're 1-5 or 0-6, I don't think that they trade Justin Herbert, but you can bet they're going to get calls about Justin Herbert, because why not?" Pelissero said.
"Bad teams, if you're having a bad season, people are going to sit there and, frankly, try to take advantage of you and go after your good players."
Not A Report The Chargers Are Selling
Head coach Jim Harbaugh has been consistently vocal about how much he values Herbert since taking over the program in 2024, and nothing about the current situation suggests that's changed.
"Justin's a winner. I don't think there's anyone who could watch him the way he prepares, trains, the level of talent, and not say that he's a winner. One hundred percent in my mind," Harbaugh has said.
Pelissero echoed that sentiment. "I'm not sitting here telling you they're going to trade Justin Herbert. We all know Jim Harbaugh has made abundantly clear how he feels about Justin."
🚨🚨#Chargers' Justin Herbert makes it clear the team has no lack of leadership
— NFL Rumors (@nflrums) September 24, 2026
Herbert stops a reporter mid-sentence: " Let me stop you right there" pic.twitter.com/7WMmNr4eJa
The point, instead, was about how the market tends to behave around any struggling team with a talented quarterback, regardless of that team's own intentions.
Why The Price Could Keep Climbing
Pelissero also pointed to teams sitting on significant 2027 draft capital that could position themselves for a quarterback, including Miami, the Jets with three first-round picks, Cleveland with two first-rounders, Arizona, and Minnesota, where Kyler Murray holds a no-tag clause that gives him control over his own future.
He also noted that the ongoing wave of quarterback injuries around the league, including the New York Giants losing Jaxson Dart for the season in Week 2, tends to push the price up for any available passer, further inflating what a team might be willing to offer for someone like Herbert if the door ever cracked open.
Asked Justin Herbert about vocal leadership, particularly whether it would be increasingly important this week to establish the urgency he mentioned after a second loss Sunday. He wanted to clarify and offered a candid response. The interaction, via https://t.co/SR0RAmVPA5: pic.twitter.com/xbSUQ7JcOj
— Noah Furtado (@bynoahfurtado) September 23, 2026
The Chargers' Week 2 loss wasn't really pinned on Herbert individually.
ESPN analyst Dan Orlovsky pointed to a rash of drops and shaky interior offensive line play as the bigger issues on tape.
Pelissero closed his comments by acknowledging just how unpredictable the league can be this early in the year.
"Who knows what team that is? Maybe it is the Chargers," he said, before immediately reiterating that nothing currently points to Los Angeles moving on from its franchise quarterback.
