It's funny, in hindsight, that the first two seasons of Jim Harbaugh's Chargers tenure were considered disappointments. The team won 11 games in each of those seasons and made the playoffs, but two dispiriting losses in the wild-card round produced a feeling that the Chargers were doing themselves a disservice by not striving for more. So out went Greg Roman, the only offensive coordinator Jim Harbaugh had ever worked with in the pros, and in came Mike McDaniel to rebuild the offense.
If you want to admit it now, that's OK. This is a safe space. You can raise your hand and say, "Yes, the thought, 'Mike McDaniel might really cook with Justin Herbert as his quarterback,' entered my head at some point between the months of July and August 2026." Nobody's going to blame you for that. Yes, McDaniel lost his job as the Dolphins' head coach in rather pathetic fashion, but there was a period there when he had the Fins playing some electric offensive football, all while Tua Tagovailoa was his quarterback. Let this guy get back to his roots as a coordinator, give him a 6-foot-6 All-Pro quarterback who can make every kind of throw, and you should have something special on your hands.
There has been absolutely nothing special about the Chargers this season. They scored six points against the Chiefs on Sunday and are now 0-6 on the season. They are averaging 15 points per game and have been held under 300 total yards of offense in half their games. Herbert is playing like Mac Jones with vertigo. He has yet to throw for 300 yards in a game, his completion percentage is six points below his career average, and he is leading the league with eight interceptions. He's also getting tenderized; the 21 sacks he's taken so far have him on pace to blow past the 54 he suffered in 16 games last season.
There are explanations for this disaster to be found on the Chargers' depth chart. Injuries have made the offensive line situation truly alarming. Both starting tackles, Joe Alt and Rashawn Slater, are out of the lineup, as is starting guard Kayode Awosika. Backups Trey Pipkins III and Trevor Penning are also on the IR, which means that the current starting group is Cole Strange at right guard and four rookies. The receiving corps is almost as grim. I suppose Ladd McConkey and Tre Harris are meant to be the top two targets in this offense, but they've combined for 28 receptions on the season. McConkey had to leave Sunday's game with a concussion, which left Herbert throwing to the likes of KeAndre Lambert-Smith and Theo Wease Jr.
Injuries aside, this is a roster that is not functioning as it's meant to. McDaniel's offense, when it works, is designed to get the ball to dynamic skill players in space. The Chargers just don't really have any of those. Running back Omarion Hampton, taken in the first-round in the 2025 draft, has been putrid this season. Harris was selected one round after Hampton, and he hasn't done much even when he's been on the field. Harbaugh was also supposed to be rebuilding this offensive line in order to protect Herbert, burning a top-five pick in 2024 on Alt and a second-round pick on Jake Slaughter this past spring. Alt played 16 games as a rookie, when Herbert was sacked 41 times, and has barely seen the field since. Slaughter's clearly not doing much to keep the current patchwork line together.
The Chargers are heading into a bye week, which makes McDaniel maybe the most pre-fired offensive coordinator in history. Harbaugh has previously stated that McDaniel's job is not in danger, but after Sunday's game he seemed resigned to the fact that something has to change. "We're going to look at everything," was his response to a question about whether McDaniel will continue to call plays going forward. Given that Harbaugh doesn't seem interested in calling plays himself—when McDaniel was hired he anointed him the "head coach of the offense"—that answer is a bit more ominous than it might appear. And here's something to send a chill down your spine: If McDaniel is fired, the guy on staff most likely to step into his role is Adam Gase.
Once the Chargers fire McDaniel, though, they are pretty much out of moves. Harbaugh is in the middle of a reported five-year contract that pays him $16 million annually, which would be a sizable and humiliating investment for the Chargers to cut bait on now. He might be eager to resign from the job himself, except that he's currently banned from returning to college football, making retirement or TV work his only realistic options. And then there's Herbert, the guy who was already one of the most polarizing quarterbacks in the league before he started putting up J.J. McCarthy numbers. The Chargers have spent seven seasons trying and mostly failing to build a winning roster around Herbert, and now he's the one producing all the stink. Even if the front office decides that now's the time to get rid of this guy and start a rebuild, who's trading anything of real value for him now?
At least they are finally doing the rest of us the favor of not wasting our time. It's nice to have the Chargers reveal themselves as frauds well before the wild-card game for once, so that they can put straight onto the pay-no-mind list, where they always belong.
