The One Massive Shakeup to the Chargers Starting Lineup that Signals an Actual Change

The Los Angeles Chargers are hoping to find some answers, retool and get some of their talent back following their bye week here in week seven. The 0-6 Chargers have been horrible on the offensive side of the ball and are ranked dead last in the NFL in EPA per play on offense and are the third-worst scoring offense in the NFL,

Injuries have ravaged Los Angeles and for the second year in a row, the football gods have punished the Chargers offensive line. The Chargers resorted to starting four rookies on their offensive line against division opponents in weeks five and six.

The Chargers were expected to have a much more efficient rushing attack with the hiring of Mike McDaniel as their new offensive coordinator. A switch to a wide zone rushing attack was expected under McDaniel but with some mixture of gap and zone rushing concepts.

The 2026 Chargers have been anything but efficient in the run game. Their current EPA per rush is -0.18, good enough for 28th in the NFL. EPA or expected points added, is an analytics metric used to measure the average expected points added on rushing attempts. Positive EPA indicates rushing the ball increases the chance of scoring points and negative decreases the chance.

Los Angeles' plans to run the ball may have been killed off when starting center Tyler Biadasz went down in training camp with a season ending knee injury. The way defenses attack wide zone rushing schemes is by wrecking the guards horizontal movement by penetrating the B-gap.

Right guard Cole Strange and rookie center Jake Slaughter are both smaller and faster NFL offensive linemen. Neither have the power to generate vertical push on their own and struggle to sustain blocks against NFL interior defensive linemen. This is why wide zone blocking and the quick passing game are the concepts best suited for their skillsets, if they were both playing guard.

Having Slaughter and Strange next to each other has created an obvious weak point on the offensive line. The data shows that when breaking down the Chargers rush EPA by gap, the A and B-gaps to the right are by far the least efficient option to run the ball.

The lack of success in the run game is tied to the interior offensive line. Had Tyler Biadasz stayed healthy, Cole Strange may have generated a completely different data set at the right guard position. Jake Slaughter's weaknesses were well known entering the NFL. If the Chargers front office chose to ignore them or planned to have a similar skill set to Strange at left guard we may never know. But now, putting them next to each other has limited the chance of success for Strange and the Chargers offense.

Most of the other Shanahan offensive system disciples such as Sean McVay and Kyle Shanahan have incorporated much more gap-rushing concepts into their offenses in recent years where Mike McDaniel has not. The San Francisco 49ers, through the first six weeks of the season, are running significantly more gap or inside zone rushing plays. 67 percent of San Francisco's runs have been between the tackles. The Chargers, by comparison, have run only 48 percent inside.

McDaniel has focused on speed and spreading the defense to create conflicts for defenders. Without the personnel to adequately run that style of offense, he should be considering copying more of what McVay and Shanahan have implemented. Despite the return of several starting offensive lineman to practice, a significant shift would likely require a bigger and stronger right guard.

If the Chargers emerge from the bye week with a new starting right guard, it will signal that shift is coming. That is not Cole Strange's fault, but having Slaughter and Strange together has not be working in the current offense and Slaughter has to continue being the starting center.

The biggest benefit in shift like this would be for Justin Herbert and the play action passing game. The Chargers play action game is getting Herbert pressured at a near 60 percent rate. If they can get the ball moving downhill, more traditional play action dropbacks should open up and open up the intermediate part of the middle of the field.

Mike McDaniel and the offensive staff, with whatever changes they are implementing over the bye week have to try something different without installing a new offense. The motion trickery and Allen Iverson-level of ball handling behind the line of scrimmage required of Herbert has created too many errors. Will the Chargers pivot or simply hope getting healthy bodies back will make a difference?