There's plenty of things to be angry about with the way the Los Angeles Chargers' season has gone so far.
This is more than a poor offensive team or a team with offensive promise that's simply struggled to put things together to this point in the season. There continues to be little to no improvment on that side of the ball on a week-to-week basis. They are 32nd in the NFL in EPA/play through six weeks, and this is the organization's worst start to a season since their 1-15 campaign in 2000. They esentially eliminated themselves from playoff contention two weeks ago, and things somehow continue to get worse.
If Los Angeles wants to move on from Mike McDaniel this week, it would be more than a justifiable decision. The organization needs to chart a path forward from here, and it seems like there's very few scenarios where that includes McDaniel's scheme and play calling.
But lost in all of this frustration has been the storyline that put the spotlight upon McDaniel's arrival in Los Angeles in the first place. After fizzling out with the Miami Dolphins, the Chargers were supposed to provide the talent and the infrastucture to give McDaniel a shot at resurrecting his head coaching career.
McDaniel certainly has a mess in front of him as long as he remains with Los Angeles. But if he's fired just six weeks into the season, his problems will only multiply from there.
MIke McDaniel's headache won't end with a Chargers firing
When McDaniel came into the fold as the offensive coordinator for the San Francisco 49ers, he was considered one of the brightest young, hot-shot potential play callers in the NFL. It seems as though those sorts of coaches, coming up under a Kyle Shanahan or Sean McVay system, always get an opportunity to coach at a higher level, and that came for McDaniel when Miami decided to move on from Brian Flores after a middling 2021 campaign.
Things clicked almost immediately with the Dolphins. McDaniel's offense finished sixth in the NFL in total yards in 2022, and he raised the ante even higher in 2023—finishing first in total offense, first in total passing yards, and first in rushing yards per attempt.
By the time Miami decided to move on last season, though, much of that magic had fizzled out. Critics claimed that McDaniel's scheme was too focused on pre-snap motion and internal complexities to remain consistently viable, and they complained that he sacrificed the run too often in order to lean into his passing game. The roster was largely without discipline or cohesion, and that fell upon McDaniel as the head coach.
Others claimed, though, that it was the limitations of Tua Tagovailoa that prevented him from fully implementing his scheme. A quarterback like Justin Herbert, and a more limited team-building role under Jim Harbaugh, were theoretically supposed to give McDaniel a chance to prove his critics wrong.
But through six weeks, who can say he's done anything to accomplish that? The offense has been riddled with miscues and mistakes, and if anything, he's actively made Justin Herbert—who's at least a top eight quarterback in the league when he's right—worse on a week-to-week basis.
McDaniel has plenty of headaches to deal with if the Chargers decide to keep him on past their bye week. The offense is still without Rashawn Slater and a number of their other offensive linemen for at least the next few weeks, and the receiving corps has shown very little to be hopeful about to this point in the season.
But who would give McDaniel another shot as an offensive play caller, let alone as a head coach, after this showing in Los Angeles? He almost certainly won't be out of a job forever, but his chances to walk into favorable situations have likely run thin. Any rebuilding team will be looking for a surer quantity to help instill confidence and consistency in their offense, and any team with true competitive aspirations will be taking a wide berth of the scheme that just tanked Los Angeles' season.
Who knows if it's the end for McDaniel—keeping him on the offensive staff and promoting Adam Gase to play-calling duties is certainly on the table. But if this is truly the end of McDaniel's sample size with the Chargers, it's hard to imagine teams racing to give him another shot to prove his doubters wrong.
Add us as a preferred source on Google