While fellow running backs Josh Jacobs and Saquon Barkley have failed to secure long-term deals with their respective teams, Los Angeles Chargers tailback Austin Ekeler was lucky to ink a four-year contract with the Bolts last March — but not before he asked the team to trade him.
Months after he signed his new contract, Austin Ekeler said that the Chargers were never on the verge of actually sending him elsewhere via a trade.
“No, and that's because I came with a lot of baggage,” Ekeler said in a recent appearance on The Zach Gelb Show (h/t Brenna White of NFL.com). “You were going to have to trade some high picks for me. The Chargers, they weren't going to let me go for anything that wasn't up there, so they saw my value there. It's funny how when they allow me the trade, they're like, ‘OK, but we want you to get these types of picks,' which were not low picks, ‘but we're not going to pay you like you're that type of player.' So, it's kind of interesting where it's like, ‘Oh, if you're going to get traded, you got to get traded at this level, but if we're going to keep you, we're going to keep you down here at this level.”
There's no denying that Ekeler is an important cog in the machine of the Chargers' attack.
In 2022, the pass-catching running back rushed for 915 yards and 13 touchdowns while also recording 722 receiving yards and five touchdown receptions on 107 receptions for the Bolts' offense that was 12th overall with an average of 23.4 points per game.
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