The NFL trade market has started moving, and the Los Angeles Chargers are watching from an unfamiliar place.

In a single afternoon, the Indianapolis Colts sent Quenton Nelson to Seattle and DeForest Buckner to San Francisco.

Marvin Harrison Jr., Cam Jurgens, Joey Porter Jr., and J.J. McCarthy had already changed teams in the weeks before that.

With the November 10 deadline less than two weeks away and the Chargers stuck at 0-6, the question in Los Angeles is no longer whether this roster can save its season, but what it can get for the pieces that won’t be part of the next one.

No piece answers that question more clearly than Khalil Mack.

Mack nearly retired last offseason before signing another one-year deal to chase the playoff win that has escaped him for 13 seasons. He believed Jim Harbaugh and Justin Herbert gave him the best chance to get it.

Six losses later, that bet hasn’t paid off, and the business side of the decision is hard to ignore. Mack is 35, his contract expires after the season, and a rebuilding team gains nothing by keeping a veteran rusher through a lost year only to watch him retire or leave in free agency.

The Chargers know how that ends, because they traded for Odafe Oweh at last year’s deadline and then lost him in free agency months later.

Mack also still looks like the player contenders want. He has three sacks and 16 pressures through six games.

Pro Football Focus grades him among the top two dozen edge defenders in the league. He has been consistent against both the run and the pass.

A team with a thin rotation would get a nine-time Pro Bowler and former Defensive Player of the Year who can play 30 to 40 snaps a week in the playoffs, which is the kind of addition that changes a January game plan.

Interest has followed. The Chicago Bears, who acquired Mack from the Raiders in 2018 and traded him to the Chargers in 2022, have reportedly called about bringing him back after missing out on Buckner.

New England has been named as another natural fit. The Buckner deal also gives the Chargers a useful price check.

Indianapolis got a 2027 fourth-round pick for a 32-year-old interior lineman, and an expiring Mack with this production should bring back something similar.

It could be more if a desperate contender is bidding against Chicago. A Day 3 pick is the realistic range for a 35-year-old rental, and the Chargers have publicly said they aren’t shopping him.

Still, Tuli Tuipulotu is younger and comes with complicated contract talks, and the rest of the roster’s sellable veterans don’t have Mack’s résumé.

That makes Mack the one asset that turns a lost season into extra draft capital without costing the Chargers part of their future.

Sending Mack to a contender gives one of the great pass rushers of his era a real shot at the postseason success he came back for, while Los Angeles adds a pick to help build the roster Harbaugh actually needs.