El Segundo, CA (Compton Bulletin) – The Los Angeles Chargers traded away linebacker Daiyan Henley to the Denver Broncos. Or so they thought.
The Chargers believed that they had a deal in place with their AFC West Division rivals. It was supposed to have been a done deal, even though the prerequisite was based on Henley passing a physical.
After all, Henley was coming off a game in which he picked off a pass for an interception and recorded 10 tackles against the Houston Texans in Week 9. Henley did not pass the physical. So the Broncos decided to squash the trade.
However, during his usual midweek press conference at the team’s practice facility in El Segundo, Chargers head coach Jim Harbaugh said the Broncos tried to leverage the trade offer with something different than what was originally agreed to by both teams.
“Here’s what I know from talking to [General Manager] Joe [Hortiz). The Broncos based a pass-fail of a minimum grade based on whether we would take less compensation. And we wouldn’t. And we didn’t,” Harbaugh said. “In my opinion, it was one of those loopholes that the league should really look into because it sets a bad precedent. It continues to set a bad precedent.”
Henley has been one of the Chargers best players the last several seasons. In his fourth year playing in the NFL, Henley has recorded over 100 tackles the last two seasons. In 2025, Henley registered 101 tackles.
The year prior, he was in on 132 tackles.
Before he was traded and then not traded, Henley had 50 tackles through the team’s first eight games. From a community perspective, Henley played at nearby Crenshaw High School before playing his college football at Washington State.
Playing in 15 games during his rookie season, Henley made just 12 tackles. Since then, Henley has thrived.
But with the team going through an 0-8 start to their 2026 regular season campaign, the Chargers made a move to send Henley elsewhere to try to improve their roster.
That move was nixed. Harbaugh said what the Broncos did should not be allowed.
“It’s a loophole and teams should not have the ability to do that,” Harbaugh remarked. “It’s a medical grade. It’s a pass-fail for a medical grade and they told us they weren’t going to pass him if it was a [2027] fourth [round] and [2028] fifth [round], which was agreed upon and they would not pass him for that. They would pass him for a 2027 fourth round and a..fill in the blank. I don’t know what you call that, but that’s what it is.”
Hortiz shared his thoughts about the proposed trade and how everything went down.
“First, it was a difficult trade to make for the organization, initially,” Hortiz said. “A lot of thought went into it. We knew the impact of Daiyan and how much we loved Daiyan. It was a hard decision to make just to trade him. And we felt like to make that trade we had to have compensation that was truly worth it.”
“We came to terms on it, made the agreement. They called us up and were asking us to amend the trade based on the physical. In our minds, a physical is a binary thing. It’s pass or fail. They wanted the player still. They wanted to change the terms. They used it. We weren’t going to do it,” Hortiz added.
After the Broncos rejected the trade, Hortiz said he apologized to Henley over the botched deal.
“Is it awkward? It’s the business,” Hortiz said. “What I can tell you is..I spoke with Daiyan today. I apologized to the citation he was in. And I feel tremendously for him and the pain and just where his mind is right now. It’s a challenging thing, but the reality of it is we love him. We did. That’s why we wanted such a compensation package to consider moving him. And we still love him. This team, they welcomed back with open arms. It hurt to trade him.”
This article appears courtesy of the Compton Bulletin
Dennis has covered and written about politics, crime, race, sports, and entertainment. Dennis currently covers the NFL, MLB, NBA, NCAA, and Olympic sports. Dennis is the editor of News4usonline.com and serves as the publisher of the Compton Bulletin newspaper. He earned a journalism degree from Howard University. Email Dennis at dfreeman@news4usonline.com
Discover more from
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.