By all accounts, the Los Angeles Chargers should be more optimistic heading into 2026 than they were at the start of last season.
Even if Joe Alt and Rashawn Slater were healthy for the entirety of the 2025 campaign, the offense as a whole had some insurmountable deficiencies. With a lack of viable interior protection, Greg Roman's uninventive scheme struggled to find consistent gains for the run game, which led to an up-and-down season for the passing attack as well.
With Mike McDaniel in the fold, the Chargers should now have answers where, under Roman, there were none. Whatever you think about McDaniel as a head coach, he is, at the very least, a creative offensive play-caller. If things click, Los Angeles should have a real shot at coming away with an AFC West title this season. But there's still quite a few variables to be considered there.
Kevin Patra, writing for NFL.com, recently listed every AFC West team's case for and against a division title in 2026. His case for Los Angeles was standard stuff— improved protection, diversified offense, and defensive continuity under Chris O'Leary.
But one point he highlighted in his case against the Chargers— the question of Herbert's acclimation to McDaniel's scheme— is one worth thinking about.
"We also don’t know how Herbert, who spent some of the offseason workoutsadjusting his mechanics, will fit in the new scheme. The QB has had plenty of coordinators during his tenure, so the belief is he’ll have zero trouble learning a new one. But given the newness of McDaniel’s scheme, it’s more than a formality."- Kevin Patra, NFL.com
Justin Herbert should be more than prepared to take on a new scheme, but what if it doesn't maximize his game immediately?
'More than a formality' is the key phrase here from Patra.
To this point in his career, Herbert has played under four different coordinators, not including McDaniel. He came into the league under Shane Steichen's spin-off of the West Coast offense. He then worked under Joe Lombardi for two seasons, Kellen Moore for one, and Roman in 2024 and 2025. There's no question of his ability to learn a new scheme in one offseason.
But he's never been asked to make the sort of drastic changes that McDaniel is implementing. McDaniel's stated goal is to maximize Herbert through anticipation throws and consistent footwork. If Herbert can get the ball out of his hands quicker, sometimes even before the receivers begin their breaks, some of the deficits in the team's interior protection should be mitigated.
Herbert is already well into the process of acclimating to this scheme. He spent one day a week during OTAs simply working on his footwork before throwing every day in mandatory minicamp.
The most likely scenario is that, by Week 1, Herbert and McDaniel are ready to roll. But combined with the new intricacies of his protection scheme and the overall complexities of McDaniel's offense, it can't simply be assumed that Herbert will acclimate immediately.
Given the slate of games the Chargers will face starting in Week 3— with pre-bye matchups against the Buffalo Bills, Seattle Seahawks, Denver Broncos, and Kansas City Chiefs— there's a world in which a slow start eliminates them from contention for the AFC West almost from the jump.
Perhaps it's simply offseason prognostication. But as Los Angeles enters a pivotal season for the Jim Harbaugh era, it's something at least worth thinking about. It is, in short, 'more than a formality'.
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