On Tuesday afternoon, the Chargers announced that veteran safety Derwin James was signed to a three-year, $75.6 million contract extension that once again makes him the highest-paid safety in the NFL. The deal also includes $57.5 million in guaranteed money and will tie James to the Chargers through the 2020 season.<\/p>\n
James is coming off his second consecutive season where he was named a Second-Team All-Pro as a slot defender. Ever since the arrival of head coach Jim Harbaugh and then-defensive coordinator Jesse Minter, James has enjoyed a rejuvenated stretch of his career that\u2019s put him squarely back in the conversation as the best player at his position.<\/p>\n
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Over the last two seasons, James has collected 187 tackles, 16 tackles for loss, 7.5 sacks, 14 pass breakups, four interceptions, a forced fumble, and a fumble recovery while playing 32 of the possible 34 regular season games in that stretch. In 2025, James was Pro Football Focus\u2019 ninth-rated safety and posted a coverage grade of of 83.7, good for fifth among qualifying safeties.<\/p>\n
In all, since joining the Chargers as the team\u2019s first-round pick in 2018, James has been named First-Team All-Pro once (2018) and Second-Team All-Pro four times (2018, 2022, 2024, 2025). His first team nod came at safety while his second-team honor that same year came as a general defensive back. In 2022, he was named as a safety before being recognized as a slot defender the past two seasons.<\/p>\n
Congrats to James on his deal! Here\u2019s to his best year yet!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"On Tuesday afternoon, the Chargers announced that veteran safety Derwin James was signed to a three-year, $75.6 million…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":698323,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[559],"tags":[64,63,85891,340300,3052,486,1231,593,85],"class_list":["post-698322","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nfl","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-derwin-james","tag-foxborough","tag-los-angeles-chargers","tag-massachusetts","tag-new-england-patriots","tag-nfl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/698322","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=698322"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/698322\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/698323"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=698322"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=698322"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=698322"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}