Jim Harbaugh walked into Arrowhead Stadium on Sunday, watched his offense scrape together a season-low six points and 259 total yards in a 22-6 beatdown, and promptly threw Mike McDaniel under the nearest team bus.
Two weeks ago, after an 0-4 loss to Seattle, Harbaugh insisted that his offensive coordinator’s job was “not in jeopardy.” Fast-forward to Sunday night, with the Los Angeles Chargers sitting at 0-6 for the first time since Harbaugh himself was taking snaps for their 1-15 disaster in 2000, and the tune changed completely. Asked if McDaniel would keep calling plays after the Week 7 bye, Harbaugh said, “We’re going to look at everything.”
I see right through this routine. Firing Mike McDaniel during the bye week won’t fix a single thing in Los Angeles, because McDaniel isn’t the guy who built a tissue-paper roster or turned Justin Herbert into a turnover machine. Harbaugh is hunting for a human shield to cover up his own broken program, and handing the headset to passing game specialist Adam Gase would be an act of football malpractice.
The Offensive Line Math Makes Any Play-Caller Cooked
Let’s deal with the strongest argument the fire-McDaniel crowd has right now. Harbaugh himself laid it out postgame on ESPN, saying, “we have to address everything, and especially offensively,” while noting that what they do in meetings and on the practice field isn’t translating to the run game, passing game, or short-yardage situations. When a team ranks 30th in the NFL at 15.0 points per game and has topped 17 points once all season, the coordinator who was hired in January to be the “head coach of the offense” owns the scoreboard.
Except look at the actual blocking mechanics McDaniel is trying to call plays around. According to ESPN Research, the Chargers have trotted out eight different offensive line combinations in six games, with nine different linemen starting at least once. For the second straight week on Sunday, Los Angeles started four rookies up front.
Try running McDaniel’s signature outside-zone and pre-snap motion concepts when four rookies are trying to pass off Kansas City stunts in Arrowhead noise. Motion timing relies on synchronized combo blocks reaching the second level; when a patchwork line loses its landmarks at the snap, every play-action fake turns into an immediate jailbreak. Herbert has been sacked 21 times in six games, including four more times on Sunday, and Ladd McConkey left in the second quarter with a concussion right after returning from a foot injury. Vince Lombardi could rise from the grave with a laminated call sheet and still get stuffed on third-and-short behind four rookie linemen.
Justin Herbert Needs Accountability, Not Another Scapegoat
The incessant glazing of Justin Herbert by national media and Chargers fans has reached absurd levels. Whenever the offense face-plants, the excuses fly about his supporting cast or his coordinator. In January, Greg Roman took the fall after a three-point playoff dud against New England. Nine months later, the exact same fanbase wants McDaniel’s head on a spike.
Meanwhile, Herbert is out here playing like a mid-tier 2K generated backup with his awareness rating nerfed into the 50s. He threw his league-leading eighth interception of the season against the Chiefs, meaning he has tossed a pick in every single game of 2026. He entered Week 5 with a league-worst 30.2 QBR, and Sunday marked the third time this season he failed to crack 100 passing yards in the first half, finishing 22-of-37 for 204 yards and zero touchdowns.
“I don’t know,” Herbert told ESPN after the game when asked what hasn’t clicked in this offense. “If I had the answers, then we’d definitely be having a different conversation.”
That quote has zero aura. A franchise quarterback making top-of-the-market money cannot stand at a podium during a nine-game losing streak dating back to last season and shrug like a guy who lost his car keys. Harbaugh tried to bail him out afterward by claiming Herbert “didn’t have a lot of chances,” which is hilarious when the quarterback threw the ball 37 times and failed to find the end zone once.
The Adam Gase Trial Balloon Is Pure Comedy
On Thursday, before the Kansas City debacle, McDaniel addressed the heat on his seat with actual self-awareness. “I think that the improvement that I see before the results generally lead to good things,” McDaniel said. “But talk is cheap. We got to do.”
Now NBC Sports’ Mike Florio reports there is “growing buzz” that Harbaugh could fire McDaniel during the bye week and elevate Adam Gase to interim offensive coordinator. Read that sentence again… slowly. The galaxy-brain plan to rescue an 0-6 football team averaging 15 points a game is to fire the guy who went 35-33 in four years in Miami and hand the keys to Adam Gase.
Harbaugh told reporters on Sunday, “The job I’m doing, it starts with me.” If he actually meant a word of that, he would admit that his culture of physical, trenches-first football just got steamrolled for 422 total yards and 128 rushing yards by Chiefs running back Kenneth Walker, and that cycling through a third play-caller in ten months will completely shatter whatever confidence Herbert has left. Firing McDaniel this week will give Harbaugh a seven-day excuse buffer before Adam Gase walks out of the bye and calls three straight screen passes into the dirt.
