The Chargers will enter the 2024 season with one of the NFL’s best edge rusher groups. They are truly four-way deep at the position, but the quartet won’t necessarily play together beyond this season. Mack is 33 and Joey Bosa will be 30 next season. The team also has Tuli Tuipulotu waiting in the wings, who will take over a starting position sooner rather than later at a much cheaper price. When and if the Chargers part ways with one of their starting veterans, they will surely want to hit the ground running with another promising young player to play alongside Tuli.

Enter Tennessee’s James Pearce Jr., a potential first-round draft pick in 2025 and a player just assigned to the Chargers by The Draft Network in its latest 2025 Mock Draft.

Pearce is a tall and slender defender at 6’5″ and 230 pounds. The 20-year-old was a promising prospect out of North Carolina who played for the Volunteers as a freshman in 2022. During his time in the rotation, he recorded two tackles for loss and two sacks. As a full-time starter in 2023, however, Pearce had his first breakout season, recording 14.5 tackles for loss and 10 sacks, an interception, two pass breakups and two forced fumbles. Unsurprisingly, he was named a First-Team All-SEC selection after the season.

“With the future of Khalil Mack and Joey Bosa uncertain, signing a top athlete in the form of James Pearce Jr. would be a good use of draft capital,” says author Ryan Fowler. “Pearce has shown that he can be an elite athlete, but how he can refine his technique remains a question of match practice this fall.”

I think an electric and athletic specimen like Pearce is an interesting choice here, but I don’t know if he’s the type of edge rusher a Jim Harbaugh team would want to use. He’s a speed rusher who can get through to the quarterback excellently, but the NFL forces you to be good at stopping the run or you’re inevitably a liability against the wrong team. One of Pearce’s biggest weaknesses is his ability to set the edge and play the run, and unless he can find a way to take a big step forward in that area in 2024, I probably don’t see him on the powder blue national team.

At the same time, ESPN just ranked Pearce as the best player in all of college football for the 2024 season, which obviously speaks for itself. Maybe he’s so good as a sack artist this year that teams can sweep his run defense under the rug. There’s a real chance of that happening. But in the end, you have to be tough in the trenches to play for Harbaugh. Only time will tell if Pearce is that type of player.