Tyler Biadasz was carted off Tuesday during a joint practice with the 49ers after an apparent left-knee injury, a sudden stop that left the Chargers searching for a center. Jake Slaughter stepped in after Biadasz went down.
The injury happened during an 11-on-11 period when DT Sebastian Valdez fell on Biadasz's left knee, and the 28-year-old could not put any weight on his leg as he left the field. That detail matters because Biadasz had signed a new three-year, $30 million deal with the Chargers this offseason, and the team had just lined him up as the center around which it intended to build.
Biadasz arrived with a track record that made the scene harder to ignore. The Cowboys selected him in the fourth round of the 2020 NFL Draft out of Wisconsin, and after a four-year rookie contract he later signed a three-year deal worth up to $30 million with the Commanders in March 2024. He appeared in 16 games for the Commanders in 2025 and started each one at center before being released after that season.
What remains unresolved is the part that matters most right now: how serious the knee injury is and whether it will cost him practice time or more. There was no immediate answer Tuesday, only the sight of a starting center unable to bear weight and a backup already taking his snaps.
For the Chargers, that is enough to turn a routine joint practice into a problem worth watching. Biadasz was supposed to settle the middle of the line; instead, the first hard test of his new role ended with him on a cart and his short-term availability in question.
