Chargers GM on sending Keenan Allen to Bears: 'I knew who I was trading'

As the Chargers headed toward the start of the new league year last week, new general manager Joe Hortiz had a salary-cap puzzle to solve. His team was set to take massive cap hits on wide receivers Keenan Allen and Mike Williams and pass rushers Khalil Mack and Joey Bosa.

After restructuring Mack and Bosa’s contracts, he cut Williams and traded Allen to the Bears for a fourth-round pick. It got the Chargers out of his $23.1 million cap hit for this year, and but it cost them a six-time Pro Bowl talent who is coming off one of his best seasons.

“Yeah, I knew who I was trading,” Hortiz told reporters Thursday. “He’s a very talented player, and I respect him as a player, as a person. It’s difficult when you have to cut a player, trade a player, release a player.”

Hortiz added that the team tried multiple times to work out a new deal with Allen, but none came together.

Allen’s agent, Joby Branion, posted on X that the Chargers made only one offer: “A pay cut for 2024 with a 2-year extension (and both years had even deeper cuts to his current pay).” Branion said he made a counteroffer to keep Allen with the Chargers, but they rejected it, and “then we were informed of the Chargers intention to trade [Allen].”

Allen, 31, played 11 seasons for the Chargers. He arrived in Chicago as the Bears’ most accomplished player at any position. He reached 1,000 yards last season for the sixth time in his career, posting 108 catches, 1,243 yards and seven touchdowns.