Chargers EDGE Tuli Tuipulotu has been expanding his status as one of the NFL’s best young pass-rushers. After his four-sack game against the Giants, it’s time to put more respect on Tuipulotu’s name.
Throughout the 2025 NFL season, SB Nation’s Doug Farrar will write about the game’s Secret Superstars — those players whose performances might slip under the radar for whatever reasons. In this installment, Los Angeles Chargers edge-rusher Tuli Tuipulotu — whose profile has been rising for a while now — deserves more recognition as a full-fledged, all-in, defense-defining force.
There are people who wonder, when a pass rusher has no sacks three games into a season, what’s wrong with the guy. In the case of Chargers EDGE Tuli Tuipulotu, who hadn’t had a quarterback takedown in the first three games of the 2025 season, nobody inside the building was worried.
In the week leading up to L.A.’s Sunday game against the New York Giants, defensive coordinator Jesse Minter put it simply: “I’m confident that those type of splash plays that I know he’s looking for will come.”
Though the Chargers lost their first game of the season in a 21-18 nailbiter, Tuipulotu’s splash plays did come, and repeatedly so. Against Giants quarterback Jaxson Dart in Dart’s first NFL start, Tuipulotu gave the rook several “Welcome to the NFL” moments with four sacks (three of Dart and one of Russell Wilson) and seven total pressures. This was more of what was expected from the 2023 second-round pick out of USC, who had a career-high nine sacks last season, and notched eight sacks and 51 total pressures as a rookie.
Tuipulotu has always been an overlooked player, but he came across my radar last season when he want on an all-time tear in Weeks 8-11. In that stretch, he led the league by far with eight sacks (Jared Verse of the Los Angeles Rams and Trey Hendrickson of the Cincinnati Bengals tied for second with five), and his 22 total pressures tied with Verse for the league lead.
That concentration of splashes put Tuipulotu front of mind for Minter, who said in July that he wanted Tuipulotu to take the proverbial next step and define the pass rush in his own image.
“He knows exactly what we want him to do,” Minter concluded. “He also has the playmaking skillset about him, too. I think the really good players, can they do what you want them do, but do they also have that little magic where they also go out of the realm and make a play.
“They’re really good, productive players, I think they’ve always been that way. I think he can be that; he’s done a great job of just taking advantage of the opportunity.”
This, and what he accomplished over his first two seasons, had me naming Tuipulotu as one of the Chargers’ Hidden Gems for the new season. After the Giants game, maybe he won’t be quite as hidden.
While the sacks were a bit slow in coming, Tuipulotu currently ranks second in the NFL in total pressures with 22. Only Will Anderson Jr. of the Houston Texans, and that Micah Parsons guy with the Green Bay Packers, have more with 25.
So in his third season, with the expectations of his coaches raised for good reason, Tuli Tuipulotu is starting to look very much like that tone-setting edge destroyer every NFL team needs.
Not bad for a guy who’s been under the radar for far too long… even among those who should know better.
Category: General Sports
