Don’t know who needs to hear this — certainly not Chargers fans — but Derwin James Jr. is a block-knocking, bone-crunching, body-rattling delight.
And you owe it to yourself to indulge at some point this NFL season in the Derwin James experience.
He’s a football player’s football player. A leader’s leader. A “force multiplier,” as former Chargers general manager Tom Telesco put it.
“There aren’t a lot like him that I’ve been around,” Telesco said. “Especially on the defensive side. Some quarterbacks — Philip Rivers, Peyton Manning, Andrew Luck. But being on the defensive side? He’s one of one.”
That’s why the Chargers have twice made him the NFL’s highest-paid safety, including this past May, when James, 30, inked a three-year, $75.6-million contract extension before his eighth NFL season.
A four-time All-Pro selection, he’s recorded 100 tackles in four seasons and racked up 94 last season for a Chargers defense that gave up the fifth fewest yards (285.2 per game) in the NFL.
“Just … the best,” said Jim Harbaugh, pausing to search for a characteristically clever way to describe James and coming up with just this: “Yeah, he’s just the best.”
And because James has been a Charger since they drafted him 17th overall in 2018, odds are that unless you’re a Chargers fan, you probably haven’t paid enough attention to him.
A heat-seeking missile in human form, he might not even be on your radar.
Not here, in this metropolis teeming with major teams. The second-biggest NFL market also ranks as the second-toughest to compel buy-in, according to the Nielsen Scarborough NFL Fandom Index, measuring factors such as apparel purchases, attendance, social media engagement, radio listenership, streaming habits and TV viewership.
And the NFL footprint is still fresh in L.A. Year 10 for the Chargers, who made a lot of San Diegans mad and sad in 2017 when they moved out and up the freeway to L.A.
The Bolts came out swinging with a slogan — “Fight for L.A.!” — that didn’t land. They had to slash ticket prices in the middle of the season. They were the team nobody asked for.
Second fiddlers to the Rams. The team that again has been dominating headlines this year by bringing back Aaron Donald, bringing in Myles Garrett and in so doing further bringing up their odds as the favorites to win another Super Bowl at SoFi Stadium like they did in 2022.
But there’s also been forward progress for the Chargers, who in 2024 opened “The Bolt,” a gleaming, $250-million training center in El Segundo. They set a team attendance record at SoFi in 2025, averaging 71,560 fans — and some games, like against the Houston Texans and Tennessee Titans, drew true home crowds, congregations of fans cheering the Bolts and not the other guys.
The Chargers can boast of a highly engaged online fan base, ranking No. 2 in the NFL in YouTube views and No. 4 in total subscribers in 2024. They can take credit for helping turn the annual schedule release into an event; last year their Minecraft-themed release video was the most viewed reveal on X with more than 19 million views. Their myriad uniform combinations have been a hit.
But for any of that to matter, the real wins will need to come on the field. In the playoffs.
“This is a winning edge for us here, having all these things that are resources,” James said. “But I always try to tell the guys, ‘It’s one thing to have all this nice stuff, but, man, we got to put it to work, you know what I mean? We got to take advantage of it.’”
The Chargers — who open the season by hosting the Arizona Cardinals on Sept. 13 — haven’t won a playoff game since 2018. But they have been wild-card participants three of the last four years, and are projected to finish this season with between nine and 11 victories.
In Harbaugh, they have a big-name coach calling the shots. And in Justin Herbert — the strong-armed, silent type — they’ve got one of the most talented quarterbacks in the league.
And they have James, the quick-thinking, quick-acting, 6-foot-2, 215-pounder whom Harbaugh has called “the best safety he’s ever seen” showing up every day, happy to be pushed hard.
“I started playing the game in the yard just as a kid, imagining I was in the Super Bowl making that last play, doing the countdown, ‘5, 4, 3, 2, 1!’ and making the big play,” said James, whose second cousin Edgerrin James is a Hall of Fame running back, cousins Mike James and Vince Williams played in the NFL, and whose dad, Derwin Sr., had game too.
“That’s how I started playing, and I’ve just been getting that same joy.”
He’s not a new commodity, but he’s a steady one.
“He’s the same person he was when he was in high school, hasn’t changed at all,” said Chris Hays, who covered James in high school and at Florida State for the Orlando Sentinel. “Always carries a big smile and a great attitude.
“And no doubt about it, he’s probably overlooked, quite honestly. Obviously, he’s a great player, but he doesn’t get the attention. If he was a Chief during the Chiefs’ run, he would’ve been big-time, on everyone’s lips.”
Telesco thinks it’s coastal bias at work.
“Sometimes that happens on the West Coast,” said Telesco, the Chargers’ GM from 2013 to 2023. “But I’ll tell you this: He does not go underappreciated in that building.”
And an appreciative James will tell you, too: He’s delighted to be a Charger.
“People say we don’t have fans, but I don’t believe that,” James said. “Because anytime I have a signing, an event, a kids’ camp, anything, it’s nothing but Chargers fans.
“And I know a lot of emotions go through their heads, for sure. I talk to a lot of them, and they’ll be like, ‘Y’all taking me through it!’ That’s any football fan I feel like. The highs, the lows, but like I said, they’ve stuck with us through it all, and we love them for it.”
Now for James and his Chargers to spread the love and make it stick, they know what they have to do.
Win when it matters.
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