The Chargers are expected to hire Joe Hortiz, the Baltimore Ravens’ director of player personnel, as their new general manager, according to multiple reports Monday. If so, then Hortiz would go from working with John Harbaugh in Baltimore to Jim Harbaugh in Los Angeles.
The final details of Hortiz’s contract had yet to be worked out, according to reports from ESPN and the NFL Network that cited unnamed sources.
The Chargers hired Jim Harbaugh as their coach last Wednesday to replace Brandon Staley, who was fired along with GM Tom Telesco on Dec. 15, one day after a 63-21 loss to the Las Vegas Raiders. John Harbaugh, Jim’s older brother, has coached the Ravens for the past 16 years.
Hortiz, 48, joined the Ravens as a scout in 1998, rising through the organization’s ranks to become director of player personnel in 2019. Baltimore won the Super Bowl following the 2012 season and advanced to the AFC title game after the ’23 season, losing to the Kansas City Chiefs on Sunday.
Telesco became the Chargers’ GM in 2013, but they reached the playoffs only three times during his tenure, including after the 2022 season, when they built a 27-0 lead in the second quarter only to squander it and lose their AFC wild-card game to the Jacksonville Jaguars, 31-30, an epic collapse.
Telesco and Staley kept their jobs despite the playoff debacle.
But they were fired less than 24 hours after the Chargers gave up the most points in franchise history in a humiliating loss last month to the Raiders on Prime Video, a national streaming service that has taken over “Thursday Night Football” broadcasts since the start of the 2022 season.
The Chargers’ lengthy interview and hiring process landed Harbaugh first and then Hortiz, which might have seemed out of order at first glance but made sense with the team taking a big swing at the University of Michigan coach, who led the Wolverines to the national championship earlier this month.
Hortiz seemed like a natural fit as the Chargers’ GM, based on his long-term relationship with John Harbaugh with the Ravens. Hortiz and New York Giants assistant GM Brandon Brown emerged as the finalists for the job among the nine who interviewed since the process began Jan. 10.
Additional hires must be made in the coming days, weeks and months as Hortiz and Harbaugh get to work on establishing the Chargers as an elite team, something that never quite materialized under Telesco and Staley. The Chargers failed to meet expectations this past season, going 5-12.
For starters, the Chargers must hire a new offensive coordinator in the wake of Kellen Moore’s anticipated departure to the Philadelphia Eagles to serve in the same role. It’s also likely that Harbaugh will hire a new defensive coordinator, perhaps bringing along Jesse Minter from Michigan.
Minter was an assistant on John Harbaugh’s staff in Baltimore from 2017 to ’20 before becoming the defensive coordinator at Vanderbilt in 2020 and then joining Jim Harbaugh at Michigan for the 2021 season. The Wolverines’ defense led the nation by giving up only 9.5 points per game in ’23.
Reports from Ann Arbor indicate Minter won’t be alone in joining Harbaugh in L.A. Ben Herbert, the Wolverines’ strength and conditioning coach, told Michigan players at a workout on Monday that intended to leave for the Chargers, according to a report on Rivals.com that cited unnamed sources.
Jay Harbaugh, Michigan’s special teams coordinator, also is expected to join his father’s staff with the Chargers, according to multiple reports in recent days.