Obviously, the Los Angeles Chargers' gamble in hiring Mike McDaniel as their new offensive coordinator this offseason hasn't reaped the benefits they were hoping for.
The idea was that, after moving on from the old, hard-nosed style of offense they lived by under Greg Roman, some sort of major change could bring playoff success to Los Angeles for the first time in Justin Herbert's career. Although it would be an adjustment for him to move into the timing-based offense that McDaniel used with the Miami Dolphins, Herbert has adjusted to new schemes numerous times throughout his career. If the offense as a whole could get a grasp on to what made McDaniel's scheme so potent during his early years in Miami, the thought was that this team had a shot to be among the league's top offenses by the time it was all said and done.
Through four weeks, Los Angeles is 24th in the league in total passing yards. They are the second-worst team in the NFL by EPA/play, only leading the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. They scored 20 points for the first time on Sunday against the Seattle Seahawks.
Absolutely nothing has gone according to plan, so where does the blame lie? A hefty portion of it has to fall on McDaniel. While Joe Hortiz certainly wasn't a big spender in free agency, he was willing to bring in a bevy of pieces that were meant to make McDaniel's transition easier. This team needed a clean offensive install, and instead we've seen a roster absolutely riddled with mistakes and miscues.
So where do they go from here? By pure performance alone, McDaniel deserves to be fired. But are the Chargers willing to give up on this experiment so quickly? Is it worth simply asking Herbert to drop the idea of the West Coast-style offense entirely?
It's a difficult position to be in, and it's only going to get more uncomfortable the deeper this hole gets for Los Angeles.
The Chargers need to figure out how Justin Herbert can be maximized—and whether McDaniel is involved in that whatsoever
Sure, maybe McDaniel is fired by the Chargers' bye in Week 7. I'm certainly not going to be the first one to advocate against it.
But offensive coordinators don't grow on trees—McDaniel would have to be replaced by an internal promotion, and is there anything there that would salvage Los Angeles' season? With an 0-4 record, I would venture to say not.
As sky-high as the optimism was this offseason surrounding McDaniel's hire, there was always some level of risk involved there. The timing-based offense runs contrary to most of what Herbert has been asked to do to this point in his career, at least in terms of anticipatory throwing and a more mechanical passing offense. But after three years without a playoff win, it was a gamble the organization was willing to take.
They signed Charlie Kolar, Keaton Mitchell, Cole Strange, and Alec Ingold to help McDaniel implement that plan. It was clear that the Chargers, at the very least, were willing to see where a full buy-in to a West Coast-style offense took Herbert in the short-term. This offense is built around that idea, and simply moving on from McDaniel at mid-season doesn't solve that issue. Perhaps it's better to let things play out over the rest of the campaign and see if some major schematic adjustments can start to make things click for the offense as a whole. If the playoffs are already out of reach, there can't be any major harm done there.
At the same time, though, what's the point in keeping McDaniel on if Los Angeles is simply going to revert away from the West Coast-style scheme in the offseason? What's the point in giving Herbert a whole year of development under a scheme that clearly has thrown off some sort of connection in his football brain?
Of course, there's more elements at play here. The offensive line has been abysmal so far this season, and the offense simply doesn't have the pass catchers to create separation and earn the necessary YAC within McDaniel's scheme. Neither McDaniel nor Herbert are fully at fault.
But the end of the day, McDaniel's job depends on Herbert. If things somehow click between now and the end of the season, and Herbert is happy and performing well in this sort of scheme, Los Angeles may very well be willing to give the experiment another year to find its form. If the Chargers have already decided that this season is a lost cause, and so is the idea of implementing a modern offense in terms of Herbert's play-style, then there's no point in letting McDaniel stick around to play out the campaign.
The reality, though, is likely somewhere in the middle. This doesn't seem like an organization that knows what the problem is—or even, frankly, how to start isolating it at this point in the season. The McDaniel gamble was always going to be the defining aspect of 2026, and Los Angeles is now left in a highly uncomfortable limbo as it sorts out where to go from here.
Add us as a preferred source on Google