Joel Klatt believes Jim Harbaugh should trade back, select players up front

Jim Harbaugh is back in charge of a team in the National Football League and will be helping to make picks for the LA Chargers in the 2024 NFL Draft. However, with his approach, Joel Klatt doesn’t think it’s much of a secret of how he’s going to approach their selections.

Klatt assessed how Harbaugh and the Chargers should play the draft on Monday during his show where he released his final mock draft. In that projection, he had Los Angeles being the team to make a deal with Minnesota by trading No. 5, which became Michigan QB J.J. McCarthy, for Nos. 11 and 23. That meant, at 11th overall, he had the franchise taking Georgia TE Brock Bowers, a player who Klatt thinks fits right into Harbaugh’s system.

“Why can he move back? Because the player that he covets, the player that he likes and the position group that he covets is still available – and he picked up an extra pick here in the 20s in the first round,” Klatt explained. “He can not only go Brock Bowers right here as a tight end but now he can sit here and still take an offensive lineman because that position is very deep during the course of this first round. So he’s going to get Brock Bowers and some offensive lineman later.”

Klatt then dove deeper into his analysis of Bowers being back in his home state of California. To him, he has the skillset to be both a tool in Harbaugh’s schemes while also being a weapon that most contenders need in order to reach their ultimate goals.

“Bowers is prototypical for a Jim Harbaugh offense. Everyone’s talking about, ‘Well, they need a wide receiver’. ‘They need a wide receiver‘, ‘It’s a perfect position for a wide receiver.’ Jim Harbaugh has never, never prioritized wide receiver. It doesn’t mean he hasn’t had good ones but he hasn’t prioritized that. He inherited a couple in San Francisco. But what has he prioritized? Tight ends,” noted Klatt. “Why does he prioritize tight ends? Because he wants to run offense out of 12 personnel – one back, two tight ends. He wants to because that puts pressure on the defense. You can be in a spread set and throw the ball or you can get big and run those extra-gap run schemes that he loves to run. Counter, gap, pin and pull – all these things that he likes to do.”

“I think Bowers is, by the way, an underrated run blocker, even though I don’t think you’re just going to sit him in there just to be a run blocker. He can own the middle of the field,” said Klatt. “You know how I feel about players in the passing game that can own the middle of the field. You don’t generally win a Super Bowl unless you have that style of player. I.e. in the last eight years – Gronk, Cooper Kupp, Travis Kelce. Bowers is that type of a guy. I think Harbaugh loves Brock Bowers so I have him at 11.”

From there, Klatt has the Chargers taking Alabama OT JC Latham to further emphasize their commitment to his style of play.

“Now he can pick here at 23,” Klatt continued. “There’s a number of quality offensive linemen that he can add to that front so that he can do what? Create more gaps, run a football team in his image.”

“This is offensive line for me. You get Bowers at tight end and now you’ve got JC Latham from Alabama after that trade with the Vikings,” said Klatt. “Bowers and Latham? I love that. I love that.”

For Klatt, this all comes down to philosophy. He, like many others, knows who Harbaugh is after nearly two decades as a head coach. That’s all he needs to notice to get a sense for how this draft could go for Los Angeles.

“If we think Jim Harbaugh is going to all of a sudden transition and win a different way? He has won the exact same way everywhere he has been,” Klatt said. “University of San Diego, Stanford, the San Francisco 49ers, and Michigan. It’s not changing! It is not changing.”

Harbaugh and the Chargers may very well keep that same approach with the No. 5 pick without making a trade. With a viable chance at a two-for-one deal in the first round, though, Klatt thinks Los Angeles could make a pair of key offensive picks before the opening night is up.