The former NFL general manager discusses the moves the Chargers and Raiders need to make this offseason, and who he thinks are the league's most underrated front offices.
Former Los Angeles Chargers general manager Tom Telesco says the team need to again devote resources to improving their offensive line this offseason to protect franchise quarterback Justin Herbert.
The Chargers’ suffered several injuries on the offensive line during the 2025 season but won 11 games and made the playoffs, where they lost to the eventual AFC champions, the New England Patriots.
Los Angeles is currently 16/1 in the NFL betting to win Super Bowl LXI, but Telesco, who had a 10-year tenure as the team’s GM from 2013 to 2023, believes they must again invest in improving their depth up front offseason after spending three of their last five first-round picks on offensive linemen.
In our exclusive interview, Telesco also discusses the future of the Las Vegas Raiders – where he was the GM in 2024 – as well as his favourite front offices in the NFL and what lessons can be learned from Super Bowl LX.
What are the team-building lessons that can be learned from the 2025 NFL season, and the two Super Bowl teams?
I think the great thing about the NFL is there are not these long rebuilding processes that you see in Major League Baseball. You can make relatively quick turnarounds if you have the franchise quarterback. If you look at New England two years ago coming off a really poor season, they brought in Mike Vrabel, who really brought in an excellent culture, but they also had Drake Maye already.
They made such a big turnaround and did it in a variety of ways. It’s hard to hit on a lot of players in free agency, but they did. They did a great evaluation on potential players to play on defense for them.
And then offensively, it was a lot of draft picks. They had a first-round pick at left tackle, another draft pick at left guard, they added a receiver in the draft.
I was one of the people going into the season who thought they were a year or two away, talent-wise. Then they lost the opening game to the Las Vegas Raiders, and I thought it was probably going to be a little bit of a rough year. Then Drake Maye got going and they took off. They had a great belief and they made a run in the playoffs.
Seattle had a really talented roster, but they also made a lot of adjustments going into the year and during the season, when they made a trade for Rashid Shaheed.
They were just a really well-balanced team, offensively and defensively. They’re probably just a little bit farther ahead right now than New England is, but New England is going to be in the mix in the next couple of years.
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.
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.
The Chargers have spent three first-round picks on offensive linemen in the past five drafts, going back to your time in LA. Do they need to continue investing in their offensive line?
You have to build a balanced team, and you can’t just only focus on one position group. But this year is different with the Chargers. You have to protect your franchise quarterback.
Zion Johnson is a free agent, so we’ll see if they can retain him or not. He’s turned into a really good player for them, but you only have so many resources in the offseason in terms of draft picks and cap money. They’re going to have to allocate a good amount of resources to the interior offensive line.
I’m a big believer that your center drives everything up front. He’s the second quarterback of the offense. They make the run game go, and they control everything in pass protection.
You’re also going to want to make sure you back yourselves up with a third tackle who you can win with. Easier said than done. They’re hard to find, but you’re going to have to probably put some resources into your backup tackle to make sure you’re not in the same position you were this past year.
Justin Herbert got an MVP vote for what he did behind that offensive line. Was his play MVP-worthy?
I’m not great with the awards and how they rank those things. All I know is he’s an MVP-level player, and he has been for a number of years. He had some things to deal with this year on the offensive line. That’s just part of the nature of the job, and he would tell you the same thing.
But as far as his performance and play, there just aren’t very many players like him with his size, his strength, his athletic ability. He just has like this innate ability to anticipate, and his off-the-field preparation and leadership skills are just rare. He’s not a boisterous rah-rah leader, although I think on gameday probably a little bit more. But the way he works in the weight room, the meeting rooms, the way he prepares – people just follow players like that. Your franchise quarterback has to have that makeup and those intangibles, and he has all of those.
You were consulted by the Cleveland Browns during their head coach search. What can you tell us about that process and your role?
I got a chance to sit in on some of the interviews. I wasn’t really part of the decision process, but I know their general manager, Andrew Berry, very well. We go back a long time to when we worked together with the Indianapolis Colts, so he gave me a chance sit in and just see their process, and it was really detailed and organized. They used a lot of people as part of the process to attack the decision on the head coach from different angles.
I thought it was fascinating. The thing that struck me with their ownership group – Jimmy Haslam, J.W. Johnson – is how they listened not only to their GM, but all their support staff, whether it’s player personnel, analytics staff, player development staff, and really took in a lot of information to make their final decision on Todd Monken. And I think Todd’s going to be a great fit for the Browns. Ohio is a football state, and also a tough, blue-collar brand of football. I think Todd Monken fits that.
Todd’s a tough, no-nonsense coach with a long background in college and pro football, and he’s performed at a high level. He’s done it with a variety of different styles of offenses, different types of players, and I really like his leadership style. He’s direct, his communication is really, really strong.
Moving into the next couple of years, the Browns are going to be a really young football team. They had a lot of draft picks last year and they have 10-plus picks this year. It’s still retooling and rebuilding, but they’re going to be very young moving forward, and I think Todd Monken as the head coach is going to be a really good teacher and developer of their young players.
Hiring a head coach in the NFL is probably the hardest thing a general manager and owner is going to do. There’s no one way where always you say, “hey, this is the way it works.” There are a lot of different ways to do it, but it was fun to watch their process and I can’t wait to watch it play out now.
Without revealing any secrets from the interview process, do you expect the Browns to continue with Shedeur Sanders at quarterback?
I have no secrets there – I don’t know, and I don’t know if they know yet. The new coach is going to take a deep dive into all the tape. Obviously they’ll use the offseason program and then training camp and figure out who the best quarterback is moving forward. They’ll have about three quarterbacks to work with and just figure out what’s the best plan moving forward. That’s what the offseason’s about and that’s what training camp’s about, and since they don’t have a solidified franchise quarterback yet, I think you have to let it all play out. I’m sure that’s what they’re going to do.
The Las Vegas Raiders also have a new head coach in Klint Kubiak. How do you think they’re set up for the future with some of the players who you drafted?
I think the biggest thing is they’ll have some certainty with their franchise quarterback. That’s what they’ve been chasing for a long time. That’s what I was chasing when I was there. Now they’re going to have a quarterback that’s young and then they can build around, and hopefully he’s there for 10-plus years.
You pair him with Kubiak, who’s got a really strong background working with young quarterbacks. But it’s going to be a rebuild. On the defensive side of the ball, they were old this past year, so it’s going to take some time to turn that over.
They also have a lot of assets right now. They have a ton of cap space, and a lot of draft picks. I know nobody wants patience, but when there’s regime changes, it just takes time to put the whole process together. I think this time with this coaching staff and now having the quarterback, you’ll see them get their own people in there, both with the coaching staff and the players.
They’ve got Brock Bowers, they’ve got Ashton Jeanty, they’ve got a left tackle in Kolton Miller, who’s a really good player, and they’ve got Jackson Powers-Johnson, who will either play guard or center. So they have some pieces on the offensive line. They need to add some more, and they’ll need to add some more weapons to the receiver room.
And then the big thing is really on defense. They had a lot of players on one-year contracts and some older players, and they’re going to have to put some assets on that side of the ball.
I think it’s just exciting as a Raider fan to see Fernando Mendoza come in and watch him grow. He was just an incredible college player. When you saw him in the playoffs in high-leverage games against the best college teams in the country, he took his game to another level.
He has a chance to be a top starter in the NFL. Now, will he be a top starter as a rookie? That’s hard to say. It’s going to be difficult. The transition is always hard. When you go to the team picking first in the NFL Draft, inherently they don’t have a lot of talent yet, but they’ll keep building around him and I think the future is bright.
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.
Maxx Crosby reportedly wants to be traded away from Las Vegas. What would be a fair price for him?
It would have to be not only two first-round picks, but some high-calibre players as well. I just think when you trade a player of Maxx’s ability, you just can’t get two first-round picks back because the odds tell you that you’re going to hit on probably one out of two. The odds of that player being an All-Pro at a premium position like a pass rusher are a little low.
I just don’t see it happening. Maxx just embodies everything that the Raiders stand for. I mean, look, his name is Maxx and spelled with two x’s. What’s more Raiders than that?
He fits the Raiders and they are a better team with him. You should see the way he practices – you could sell tickets. He plays every snap like it’s the Super Bowl. He’s relentless. He’s a pass rusher that can really affect the game, and players like that don’t come around very often.
In the end, maybe this is all talk and maybe nothing happens, but if it does happen, it would have to be a pretty big package.
You started your NFL career as an intern with the Buffalo Bills. What was the experience being around a team that made four straight Super Bowls?
It was unbelievable. I was in college and interning for the Buffalo Bills in the summer, but at that point, I had no thoughts of even working in the NFL. I didn’t even think it was possible. I took the internship just because I thought I could learn some things to be a better player in college.
I was from Buffalo and I was a big Bills fan, and they were loaded with talent – Jim Kelly, Thurman Thomas, Andre Reed, James Lofton, Bruce Smith, Cornelius Bennett, Steve Tasker – it just goes on and on and on. Getting a chance to watch those guys practise every day was unbelievable, and watching a head coach like Marv Levy, who is in the Hall of Fame, and Ted Marchibroda, one of the best offensive coordinators in NFL history.
I learned a lot there in four years, and then that propelled me after college to my first NFL job with the Carolina Panthers.
To have a team go to four straight Super Bowls and lose four straight, you will never see that again. To keep coming back like they did, that was the most mentally tough football team that’s ever been assembled. I’m from Buffalo, it’s a chip on your shoulder city. When you see teams like that, you can’t help to embody that same mentality. I’ve always kind of thought I had the same mentality, that no matter what happens, I’m going to come back swinging.
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.
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.
From a GM’s perspective, what NFL team do you think could make the same leap as the Seahawks and Patriots to reach next season’s Super Bowl?
I’d probably say the Chicago Bears. I thought the identity that they put in this year on offense was really impressive. They changed how they played in one year. The head coach really put his stamp on the offense. They have Caleb Williams, who’s an outstanding quarterback, but their offence was a lot of the physical run game, which you have to have in that division.
When they got in the fourth quarter and they needed a play from the offense, Caleb Williams put on his Superman cape and made plays. They kind of did that week after week after week.
They probably didn’t have quite a playoff calibre defense yet, but I think they’ll probably put a good amount of resources in the defense this year. They didn’t play great, but they forced a ton of turnovers. With a couple of tweaks to the defense, I think they can make a run very similar to the way the Patriots did this year.
We hear a lot about front offices like the Eagles and Rams, but is there an under-the-radar front office who you think do a good job?
The Patriots, and I know Mike Vrabel is a big part of player acquisition there, but Eliot Wolf did a tremendous job this past year. You only have so many resources to build the team, and he used them all, but the biggest thing is he hit on so many of them. That’s hard to do. I think he doesn’t get enough credit for that.
I could also have mentioned the Denver Broncos. George Paton is their GM and Sean Payton has a pretty strong hand on personnel there too, but they’ve done a tremendous job rebuilding that team. They make really calculated decisions with a pretty high hit rate. They’ve really impressed me with their turnaround. If you think about where the Broncos were three years ago to where they are now, it’s completely different. They’ve really turned it around.
You dipped your toe back into the NFL with the Browns recently. Are you targeting a return to a front office role in the near future?
I’m a football guy. I always will be. This is what I do for a living and what I love to do. So I’m not sure yet. I filled the void this past year by helping out with the local high school football team and really enjoyed doing that. Just being a part of the team and having a chance to go out and be on the practise field for two hours a day was great for me. I did that and I did some Sirius XM NFL Radio as a fill-in host to keep me engaged. I’ll kind of see what happens. I’ve been in the NFL for 31 years and this is all that I know.
We’ll kind of see what opportunities kind of comes across. Things like this give me a chance to just talk football. I have all this football knowledge in my head that I can’t do anything with anymore. So I’ll take a chance to get out and do the media and NFL radio, and we’ll see what happens in the future.
