The Los Angeles Chargers enter their Week 7 bye week beaten, battered and bruised. Their roster is in injury purgatory, their offense is lifeless and their personnel is weak in many spots.
The Chargers defense has been going to absolute war week in and week out trying with their entire might to keep the Chargers in games. Against the Chiefs on Sunday, Cam Hart intercepted Patrick Mahomes in the endzone, Justin Egboigbe and Tony Jefferson stonewalled Kenneth Walker on a four-and-goal run and the defense forced multiple stops to give the offense the ball back. The offense appears to be the walking dead and incapable to reciprocating the defenses efforts.
The Chargers offense isn't just bad, it's historically bad. The franchise is off to its worst start since the 2000 season, ironically a season in which Jim Harbaugh went 0-5 as a starter alongside Ryan Leaf and Moses Moreno. This was supposed to be a team primed to be Super Bowl contenders. Even the most cynical media pundits never imagined the results would stray this far from success. What happened?
Mike McDaniel missed the mark
The most obvious elephant in the room is that despite the excitement for the pairing of offensive genius Mike McDaniel and franchise quarterback Justin Herbert the two are not meshing. Herbert seems to be struggling with his post-snap reads and his confidence in what he is seeing is causing uncharacteristic errors and an explosion in his turnover-worthy play rate, plays in which he puts the ball in danger.
Justin Herbert has a career average of 2.2 percent with his highest rate hitting 2.6 percent. The high of 2.6 percent occured last season in 2025 while he was playing behind an injury-decimated offensive line that he dragged to the playoffs.
Herbert has a 6.7 percent turnover-worthy play rate through the first six weeks of the 2026 season. He had four different offensive coordinators from 2020-2025 and was consistent, 2026 is an absolute and undeniable outlier.
Mike McDaniel is a branch off of the Shanahan coaching tree and not all quarterbacks are best suited for that style of offense. McDaniel is likely on his way out of LA with how the offense has performed. It very well may be purely a water and oil situation where the two do not mix. Herbert has been elite at pre-snap analysis and post-snap execution, the sudden collapse is more than likely the shift in emphasis in a Shanahan-based system for which he is not suited for and McDaniel was unwilling to adjust his offense to match the quarterback.
Joe Hortiz overestimated offensive talent
The Chargers offense is not just bad, they are also dealing with a massive gap in talent and experience. For the second season in a row, the offensive line, particularly the interior has been the catalyst for Justin Herbert running for his life, being pressured and hit at historically bad rates, again.
Chargers general manager Joe Hortiz and the Chargers front office was tasked with retooling the interior offensive line after horrific play on the offensive line in 2025. Los Angeles frustratingly did not treat the guard position with the intent and importance that they should have. They did sign quality veteran center Tyler Biadasz to replace retiring Bradley Bozeman. But to replace left guard Zion Johnson and right guard Mekhi Becton, they signed journeymen or former first-round busts to compete for the starting guard positions.
Joe Hortiz believes in and fully uses the Baltimore Ravens philosophy of believing that they can find cheaper guards and elevate them with scheme and quarterback play. Hortiz fully expected and banked on McDaniel being able to elevate the interior with scheme, when Biadasz went down with injury, the results were catastrophic.
The 2026 offensive line was built to be functional in a best-case scenario, the Chargers have started their sixth option at left guard the past two weeks with rookie Logan Taylor and have backup rookie tackles as well. The lack of investments in the offensive line for the past two years in the draft and this past offseason in free agency have had catastrophic results.
On the flip side of the ball, the cornerback room was thin entering training camp. The position group generally experiences high rates of injury and Los Angeles entered the season with only five cornerbacks with one being a career special teams ace and another was an undrafted rookie.
Due to injuries, a practice squad cornerback had to be thrown into the fire against the Kansas City Chiefs. Injuries happen, but the glaring lack of depth in the cornerback room was evident from the start of training camp and was not addressed, that falls on the front office.
Watching the franchise quarterback take an absolute beating week in and week out behind a catastrophic injury circumstance along the offensive line only to repeat the problem the following season while hoarding excess cap space is not a good look. By all objective statistics, the offensive line for the 2026 Chargers is worse than the 2025 version.
The failures of the offense and the personnel decisions that have lead to the current offensive line situation, should put both Mike McDaniel and Joe Hortiz in the crosshairs to be potentially fired by the Chargers. The Chargers are 0-6 and the entire offense is playing terribly and something has to change. Los Angeles enters week seven on a bye, if change is coming, this is the time to do it.
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