“It was nice to get him extended. Corey is a very disruptive layer, and he plays a very important position in our defense. The 3-tech defensive tackle makes that whole front go, and he has that type of ability. He turned 25 just a couple months ago. He still has a really high ceiling. There’s still a lot of good football in front of him, and still a lot of skills in front of him. So I don’t even think we’ve seen the finished product yet.”
Chargers general manager Tom Telesco is a busy man. Having just completed an extension for defensive lineman Corey Liuget, Telesco will now shift his focus to two other key members of the team: safety Eric Weddle and quarterback Philip Rivers.
Weddle skipped the team’s voluntary workouts, and he’s also spoken out against the organization’s handling of negotiations. The 30-year-old is entering the final year of his five-year, $40MM contract. Meanwhile, Rivers is set to be a free agent following the 2015 season, and he’ll be paid $15.75MM in the final year of his contract. The 33-year-old was mentioned in trade rumors throughout the offseason.
Telesco talked with Scott Kaplan and Billy Ray Smith of The Mighty 1090 AM radio late last week, and ESPN.com’s Eric D. Williams transcribed the conversation. We previously passed along some of Telesco’s quotes regarding Weddle, but we’ve compiled some of the other intriguing soundbites below…
On the ongoing negotiations with Weddle, and whether the safety will show up to minicamp next week:
“Each negotiation, each discussion is just different. In his case, he’s up there at the top of the market where he’s paid right now.”
“I expect him to, but we’ll see next week. But I’d expect him to be here. … He’s a pro. He’s a big part of this team. We know everything about him. We’ll know he’ll be ready to go. I’m not worried about that at all.”
On the organization’s discussions with Rivers:
“We still have open lines of communication, but there’s really nothing new to report right now. We’ll continue to hopefully talk and see how it goes.”
“The numbers are pretty big, so the conversations do take some time. But we’ll keep working at it, and we’ll see where it goes.”
On Liuget’s five-year extension:
On the organization’s discussions with Rivers:
“We still have open lines of communication, but there’s really nothing new to report write now. We’ll continue to hopefully talk and see how it goes.”
You’d think a journalist would know how to use the proper form of “right.”
Looks like a typo from Williams (it’s still in the ESPN.com story) that we missed when passing along his transcript. It’s been fixed now. Thanks for helping us get it (ahem) write.