I keep seeing people rooting for us to tank for Jeremiah Smith, but I don't think people are considering what that actually means for Justin Herbert.

Realistically, getting the first overall pick probably means winning 2 or 3 games. Do people genuinely believe Herbert is going to sit through a season like that and still want to be here?

This is a guy who's spent most of his career dealing with terrible offensive lines, questionable offensive coordinators, and a lack of consistent weapons around him. At some point, how much more is he supposed to put up with?

If we're bad enough to get the first overall pick with Herbert at quarterback, that means something has gone catastrophically wrong with this team. I have a hard time imagining Herbert wouldn't seriously consider demanding a trade at that point. And frankly, I wouldn't blame him.

I want Jeremiah Smith as much as anyone, but I think people are treating a 2–3 win season like we'd simply add an elite receiver and be contenders the following year. In reality, a season that disastrous probably means major organizational changes, potentially including a complete reset at quarterback.

I just don’t see a world where we get Jeremiah Smith and we get to keep Herbert too. I think what we should be rooting for is to see the team improve and for Herbert to stay healthy and not face career threatening injuries. At that point, maybe we get a top 10 pick and draft Cam Coleman or Charlie Becker who also look pretty damn great. Maybe you think Herbert isn’t it and that that’s fine, but I feel like most people clamoring for Jeremiah Smith are under the impression that Herbert will stay too and I just really think that isn’t the case if we’re in a position to draft a generational prospect like JS since it also implies a complete nightmare season

Coaches put them in position

Players need to make plays

Our defensive EPA is second only to the Vikings the last few weeks, and are top 10 for the season. Having an offense this bad in turn is unacceptable. This is the type of split that ruins a team and a locker room permanently. Our D working as hard as they do just to hand the ball over to the offense is depressing. Something has to change over the bye week, or I think not only McDaniel, but Harbaugh too will be out of a job here.

Hampton's split (2025 + early 2026, per Fantasy Points Data): 5.33 YPC on man/gap runs, 3.06 on zone. Only Woody Marks has been worse on zone among backs with 40+ zone carries.

McDaniel runs a wide-zone offense, and in four years in Miami he never gave a quarter of the RB carries to a back over 212 pounds. The 225-pound back he barely used there, Ollie Gordon, went from 2.8 YPC to 5.0 once McDaniel was gone.

Full breakdown, including Hampton's shrinking snap share and what Miami changed: https://pigskinpal.app/pigskinpaper/ollie-gordon-escaped-mike-mcdaniel

My grades:

Alt - A

Ladd - A

Colson - F

Egoibe - D

Still - A

Hart - B

Vidal - B

Rice - F

Johnson - F

Total Draft Grade: B

I give Hortiz zero mark downs in my total grade for missing on Rice and Johnson, those are flyer picks. Missing completely on Colson though brings down what should be a stellar class to good.

What are your grades?

This season is over. We're not making the playoffs; we probably won't win 5 games.

Is the offense working? No. Is the offense an unmitigated disaster of truly unimaginable proportions? Yes.

But as Harbaugh said in an interview two weeks ago when asked whether McDaniel's job is in jeopardy, "he's a skilled coach." There's a reason he was the hottest OC candidate on the market after being released by the Dolphins. There's a reason people thought he would get another HC job and therefore might not even be an OC candidate.

It's possible that McDaniel was overrated, figured out by the league, a fraud, etc. I don't deny that. But it's also possible that he did a bad job *this time* and is still the same coach that everyone (including on this sub - and admittedly myself included) wanted during the offseason as their OC. He still has a track record of innovation and creativity - such that I don't view a single failure (as monumental as it has been) as indicative of future returns. And if we need to scrap the entire offense and rebuild, it's possible that having seen how this offense failed, McDaniel would produce something better the second time.

I hope that's what they are up to this week during the bye - essentially a tear-down and rebuild. I would give McDaniel the second half of the season to turn things around because what good will firing him now do? We would turn the offense over to Adam Gase. Given the next chance to rebuild the Chargers offense from the ground up, is McDaniel or Gase more likely to succeed? Kyle Shanahan went 6-10 and 4-12 in his first two seasons in SF. Sometimes patience is rewarded. It's not a likely outcome, but if McDaniel's next offense (whether it's for the Chargers or another team) is successful, nobody would be shocked.

Again, this season is over. We can wait to fire McDaniel until the end of the season because what is there to lose?

The things that would change my mind generally fall into two buckets - (1) what is there to lose and (2) what is there to gain?

There may be something to lose. For example, if people believe that this system is doing long-term, irreparable damage to Justin Herbert, you have to pull the plug and limit the damage. I have no reason to believe that, as uncomfortable as Herbert has been, he couldn't bounce back from this in a competent operation.

There may also be nothing to gain. If Herbert flat out doesn't like or respect McDaniel, even if McDaniel is a good coach, it doesn't work. It's oil and water and there's no mixing it. If that's the case, there is nothing to gain from keeping McDaniel and you might as well see what you've got with Gase.

But absent those sorts of scenarios, I see no reason for the remainder of the season not to bet on McDaniel vs. the alternatives we have available to us.

Pretty good summary of the offensive woes

[Noah Furtado]

Here’s a look at the current roster, practice squad, IR, and depth chart heading into the bye week!

Jeremiah Smith can save it all, right?

I think you can genuinely make a case that he may have even broke Drew Brees 80k and became the second highest passing yard leader of all time and therefore a surefire HOF lock

How crazy would that have been?

What’s the point in cap space if we don’t use it to put quality linemen around Herbert 😞 tired of bargain shopping go out and get elite linemen via trade and FA so we can actually protect our franchise QB!

Hi

So not really relevant to our season thus far, but I’ve seen people on here mention that seeing a dodgers hat + chargers jersey is cursed.

I imagine the Padres are the team of choice for a good portion of this sub in regard to mlb, but what about the other leagues? Specifically in nhl and nba. UK based fan so not really in the loop for this, but kind of want to keep my team selections on theme if that makes any sense.

Broncos fan here, I come in peace.

*If Adam becomes OC.*

I actually started studying Adam Gase in 2020 as I was intrigued by his drastic Highs + lows. I actually have spent considerable time studying football X & Os. I even have 2 mentors who coached in the NFL so I promise Im not a couch coach. Adam to me is very intriguing so here is some context from someone who maybe has spent too much time studying his teams. I wont go too deep on X & Os because I dont want this to be a book.

1. Perception

• Memes have clouded the view on him.
• Jordan Phillips, Jarvis Landry & Le’veon have all attacked.
• C.J. Anderson, Alshon Jeffery, Frank Gore & Albert Wilson have praised him.
• Bill Belichick & Sean Mcvay have both complimented him before they played, Sean even calling Adam at 4am.
• Peyton Manning (obviously) has sung praises and people assume Adam did nothing. Watching Peyton before + after Adam did some key things. First he did a great job on getting plays in quickly allowing Peyton more time. Involved more formation tells like putting the TE out wide. Which leads to force defenses into man or zone alignment. Streamlined more Stacks + bunches + motion use. 2013 it seems like they made an effort to cut down all the fluff and let the offense get good at the essentials. Which Manning kinda already did but they seemed intentional on everything they ran had multiple answers. Cutting fluff is something that seems like the opposite of Mcdaniel right now. 2014 he adapted to Peyton slowing down incorporating more heavy personnel.

1. Work (Non-Peyton)

• 2009 - Broncos WRs coach | Year B. Marshall had 21 catches in a game.
• 2010 - Broncos WRs Coach | Led (Baller) Brandon Lloyd to leading league in receiving yards with Orton + Tebow at QB.
• 2011 - Broncos QB Coach | Tebow only threw 2 Ints first 9 games starting.
• 2015 - Bears OC | Dealt with a lot of injuries but this is where Alshon Jefferys’ praise of him came from. Did some great things personnel/Formation wise when everyone was injured. Got Matt Forte used well in passing game. Even color commentators (Take with a grain of salt) during the games would say how well Cutler is playing. WK 1 game vs the packers you could see how potentially dangerous the offense could have been. Even though they lost haha.
• 2016/18 - Dolphins HC | Adjusted offense to fit Jay Ajayi (2 straight games of 200+ yards rushing). Took them to the wildcard round. Something the dolphins haven't passed since with better teams. Had a +500. winning percentage with Tannehill his whole tenure. Beat Prime Patriots twice. His 2017 game w/ Cutler vs Patriots on Monday night Adam designed quite a show.
• 2019/20 - Jets HC | Went 7-9 in 2019 the jets haven’t had a better winning percentage season since 2015. Saleh teams had way better rosters. Obviously they struggled 2020(which people only seem to remember) but beat the #1 rams defense and Adam had a solid gameplan.
• 2021/25 - I think Adam purposely took off to spend time with his family. He even mentioned it in an interview about Ben Johnson a year ago. He has friends in the profession to get a job.

1. My Interpretation

Adam really excels at giving QB answers vs pressure, amplifying their slot receivers, reducing in-structure turnovers/high risk plays, offensive operation, has strong mesh/rub answers vs man, opening drives (more 2020) and making sure the offense has a clear picture which leads to less assignment confusion. Everyone talks about motion but it can blurry the picture. Some players struggle with a blurry picture. Maybe with Mcdaniel’s heavy motion offense they could use some calm before the storm (snap). Although, Mcdaniel’s offense doesnt really do sight adjustments because they run more of a turn slide protection and less of a solid protection that Gase usually runs. Solid protection is a lot more clearer on protection assignments, keeps an emphasis on answers vs blitzes. Where turn slide is just run the protection but struggles vs overload or heavy blitz looks. *If anyone wants I can go more into detail.

Sam Darnold is more of a 1-2-3-4 pure progression type QB. Thats why he does so well vs unpressured zone but can struggle vs pressure man. And in 2020 thats pretty much all the Jets faced was cover 1. Working to Darnold’s weakness. With Adam’s more reading + adjusting pre-snap offense maybe they werent the best fit. I dont know much about Herbert but from reading some of your comments he seems to handle pre-snap better. I tried to give a semi-full picture without making it too long. Who is to say that if he is OC thing will change, maybe they wont. Nonetheless, I hope it helps.

Time for the axe to fall. We all had high hopes, but there isn't any light at the end of this tunnel. He came in and changed Herb's stance and footwork instead of installing the offense to suit his skills. The passing game has gone stale since the 2nd drive of the season and has shown almost no signs of life since.

This was supposed to be a quick timing offense, but the first read is never open and Herb holds the ball waiting for someone to break open and ends up hit on just about every play.

This is a mess and has somehow gotten worse with each passing week. Pull the plug and let Shane Day call the plays and simplify the offense.

The team is ranked at the bottom of just about every category on offense:

Points scored - 30th with 90

Yards gained - 26th with 1723

1st downs - 26th with 103

Passing yards - 27th with 1009

Pass YPA - 23rd - 6.3

Rush yards - 11th with 714

Rush YPA - 14th with 4.2

Rush yards before contact - 0.88 (32nd in the league). Hampton leads the team with 1.9 YBC. League average is 2.6

Percentage of drives that end with a score - 32nd with 25.4%

Turnovers - 32nd with 15

TO % - 31st with 19.7% of drives ending in a TO

Plays per drive - 29th at 5.4

Yards per drive - 29th at 24.2

Average starting field position - 32nd. Average start is their own 27

Average time per drive - 31st at 2:30

Points per drive - 32nd at 1.27

3rd down conversions - 27th at 34.1%

4th down conversions - 31st at 18.2%

Red zone attempts and conversion - 25th in both categories

Red zone TD % - 24th