A Self-Indulgent and Orgiastic Los Angeles Chargers TankWatch

Legend has it that when Mehmed the Conqueror finally marched in triumph into the triple-walled city of Constantinople, he was disappointed by what he found.

The young Sultan had spent years planning his siege, then over a month with his teeming army outside the nigh-impenetrable walls of the capital of what was still called the Roman Empire. Mehmed longed to pluck “The Red Apple,” a legendary orb held by Emperor Justinian in an equestrian statue atop a pillar, as a symbol of Ottoman supremacy and his own might. He planned to rule over the wealthiest, most sophisticated city in the known world.

But Mehmed entered a city that had withered under centuries of sieges and setbacks. Animals grazed in what were once grand plazas. Glorious statues from antiquity had long ago been melted down to fund armies. The Hagia Sophia still stood proudly, but other noble churches had fallen into disuse. The Red Apple? Historians do not know what became of it. Perhaps it was lost during an earlier earthquake, or just tossed into Mehmed’s treasure pile, a life-consuming goal that turned out to be a mere trinket. 

Mehmed discovered that he and his predecessors had all but destroyed the very prize that they spent lifetimes coveting.

I feel a lot like Mehmed the Conqueror when writing about Justin Herbert and the Chargers.

For four years, I have laid siege to the impenetrable fortress of Herbert’s reputation, clashing quixotically against his legions of loyal defenders. But this season, someone (spoiler: Mike McDaniel) left a gate unlocked. Into Herbertinople swarmed the skeptics, realists, smart-alecks and haters, eager to loot the quarterback’s reputation and hoist the throbbing orb of I TOLD YOU SO high over the heads of our vanquished foes.

Yet what do we find? A franchise on the verge of collapse. A roster plagued with injuries. A hopeless, hapless team incapable of defending itself. And a quarterback, flawed but gifted and determined, ready to fight to the bitter end as if he were guarding a sacred shrine.

Wait … you mean it’s really not Justin Herbert’s fault? 

The Chargers Story So Far

Most NFL fans, even semi-passionate ones, have only paid cursory attention to the Chargers for decades.

The Chargers spent a half-century in San Diego, a tiny media market in America’s unairconditioned sun porch. Then they moved to a giant media market swarming with legendary sports franchises and major universities; Los Angeles swallowed them like a soggy Cheerio. 

The Chargers’ fan footprint and blogger/podcaster presence on the Internet is miniscule. The team itself has only won one playoff game since 2014. The Chargers are rarely on national television; their games are usually regional broadcasts in the late-afternoon window, when most fans are watching the Cowboys, Chiefs, 49ers, an East Coast team's postgame show or baseball playoffs. 

With so little television exposure and regional media/fan juice, perceptions of the Chargers over the last 20 years have been shaped by the fantasy and draftnik communities, neither of which rely on local interest to drive engagement. The Chargers became a team that made shrewd/noteworthy selections in the draft (Joey Bosa, Hunter Henry, Derwin James, Herbert, Rashawn Slater) and fielded useful/interesting fantasy players (Keenan Allen, Mike Williams, Austin Ekeler, Melvin Gordon, Herbert, Henry, Omarian Hampton, etc.). By the late 2010s, the Chargers persona was defined by ubiquitous quarterback Philip Rivers, their one or two well-known recent draft picks and some backs or receivers who compiled pretty good stats.

The film expert community, which grew out of the draft and fantasy communities, also found fertile ground in the Chargers’ low-information environment. Draft and fantasy analysis is highly speculative, while film analysis is largely theoretical, so the Chargers became a hipster-chic Next Big Thing, always on the verge of a breakout season. Anointing the Chargers as darling “sleepers” became a Summer Solstice celebration. They were the fun team to talk about on NFL programs when there was nothing else to talk about. Let me tell you about their Hotshot Rookie, That Guy From Your Fantasy Team and all the scouting/schematic secrets I unearthed by watching games no one else watched.

The Chargers almost always fell short of their modest expectations. Usually, a preseason or early-season injury was the culprit. The fact that an injury to Derwin James or Hunter Henry could instantly derail the Chargers underscored just how flimsy their claim to relevance usually was. The Chargers were just small-market welterweights, a suntanned variation on the Colts. But they maintained their indie cred. 

Into this nutrient-rich broth for balderdash crashed Justin Herbert like an icy comet into the primordial earth.

The conversation around the Chargers hasn’t really changed during the Herbert Eon. It has just amplified. The Chargers spend each offseason on speculators’ Team to Watch lists. Then someone gets injured or a tastemaker-approved genius of a coach turns into a dum-dum. (See: Brandon Staley or the current situation.) At best, the Chargers stagger to a one-and-done Wild Card berth. Then they swap out some coaches and personnel and return to the sleeper list.

Take 2025 as an example. The Chargers were coming off a Wild Card loss. They added Omarion Hampton and Tre Harris in the draft: more weapons for Herbert! Get ready to buy Chargers stock!. Then tackles Rashawn Slater and Joe Alt got injured, and all expectations around the Chargers immediately evaporated. Slater and Alt are fine players, but no one declares a Chiefs or Ravens season over the moment they lose two offensive linemen, nor a 49ers season over when they lose five All-Pros. The Chargers got unceremoniously tossed out of the 2025 playoffs as if they had snuck in with a fake ID. Then they hired offensive coordinator Mike McDaniel in the offseason. Sleeper status reclaimed! 

This year’s offseason calamity was an injury to center Tyler Biadasz: a real Jump the Shark, out-of-ideas catalyst for a franchise-wide meltdown. Casting McDaniel as an offensive savior was also a stretch: his reputation as a playcalling mystic has been in steady decline since October of 2023. 

Quibbles about preseason setbacks, Herbert’s ever-diminishing accomplishments-to-reputation ratio and McDaniel’s barista writing his novella instead of bringing you coffee persona aside, the 2026 Chargers have been far worse than even their biggest critics could have imagined. They lost 26-14 to the Cardinals, who have not won a game since. They lost by the same score to the Raiders, whose three wins have come against teams with a combined 1-14 record through Week 5. Then their schedule got hard. Somewhere in there, Slater and Alt got hurt again. So did two of their backups. 

Herbert doesn’t stand a chance under the current circumstances. 

Wait … did I just type that?

Management Structure

Jim Harbaugh is a conniving scoundrel who barely makes an effort to conceal his megalomania. Yet he somehow makes his manipulative, underhanded contemptuousness seem charming.

Harbaugh has Sinatra-tier chaotic-neutral charisma. He ran the Michigan football program the way Moe Greene ran casinos. He alternates between sneering at the media and offering deliriously hyperbolic soundbytes, knowing we will pounce upon them like starving hyenas. He deflects accountability and criticism as if he’s made of vibranium. 

Harbaugh is also passionate about football and has been obsessively competitive since his days as a pesky little scrambler at Michigan, then with the Bears and Colts. He’d gladly mow the practice field if asked; he might need to be asked not to. He’s fiercely protective of the players who meet his standards of dedication, loyalty, toughness and talent, in that order. Those traits made him a successful vibes-based Leader of Men™ at Stanford, with the 49ers, at Michigan and in his first two seasons with the Chargers.

Harbaugh has one fatal football flaw: when the going gets tough, he gets going. He bolted from the 49ers as the roster that reached Super Bowl XLVII began to decline. Belligerently incompetent GM Trent Baalke took the blame for both Harbaugh’s departure and the 49ers’ collapse, but Harbaugh could have easily defeated Baalke in a power struggle if his alma mater wasn’t offering a feudal lordship and treasure rooms filled with gold. 

Harbaugh’s interest in the NFL was rekindled in 2024 by an NCAA investigation and multiple suspensions. If he had his druthers, Harbaugh would still be running the Michigan football program like a floating baccarat game on a Bond villain megayacht in international waters.

Harbaugh, in short, is likely to suddenly develop a new passion if rebuilding the Chargers looks like too hard/dull/thankless a job for him. The NCAA has posted an archangel with a flaming sword at its gates to prevent Harbaugh from re-entering, but the NCAA couldn’t enforce a parking ticket right now, so anything is possible.

Mike McDaniel has long been a self-insert Mary Sue character for NFL podcasters, who dream of rolling unshaven into some NFL headquarters in their Reebok workout gear, building gameplans out of Madden money plays and showing those creaky boomers how it's done. 

McDaniel also reminds me of a new teacher with a Master’s Degree in Medieval poetry hoping to get certified via the “alternate route,” a guy who sits on his desk, soliloquies about his collegiate misadventures and encourages the eighth graders to call him “Mike.” Such individuals spend September as the coolest new teacher in the junior high, then must be rescued from a burning classroom by November. 

McDaniel fostered a culture while coaching the Dolphins which was half cannabis dispensary, half cat cafe. He spent the start of his final season in Miami sharing his dark ideations and ended it delusionally unaware that he was about to get fired; this also mirrors the journey of the unprepared intellectual cool-guy teacher.

McDaniel’s strength is his scheme, which is best characterized as Kyle Shanahan on microdosed mushrooms. Unfortunately, McDaniel’s balletic play designs, with their fractal formations and motion, require careful installation and precision execution. McDaniel doesn’t really do “careful” or “precise,” so his offenses veer between brief, ecstatic surges and long periods where everyone is jumping offsides and/or bumping into one another.

The philosophy behind the 2026 Chargers was that Harbaugh would provide the fundamentals and motivation, McDaniel the creativity, and Herbert the sheer talent. In fact, Harbaugh appears to be running on Football Guy autopilot, McDaniel is scribbling the lyrics for a concept album on his whiteboard, and Herbert is struggling to adapt to a system which is nothing like the last one, which was nothing like the previous one.

Chargers GM Joe Hortiz is a Harbaugh functionary with no plan or personality of his own. Defensive coordinator Chris O’Leary was an affordable replacement for Jesse Minter; I lack the time and tactical acumen to appraise O'Leary's work as Western Michigan’s defensive coordinator in 2025. 

Chargers owner Dean Spanos has a reputation as a cheapskate, but that’s mostly an effort to impose some sort of personality upon him. Spanos’ masterstroke of stupidity was moving the team from San Diego to Los Angeles without answering minor questions like, Where will we play? Or, Does Anyone Care? But Spanos has generally fielded competitive rosters, hired in-demand coaches and spent money to keep the Chargers’ core stars. In a world where owners build taxpayer-funded pleasuredomes and move storied franchises to Eagleton, Indiana, is crashing on the Rams’ couch really such a bad thing?

Adam Gase is also on the coaching staff as a “passing game coordinator.” This is exactly like inviting a scorpion into your sleeping bag.

Quarterback Situation

Justin Herbert is a solid NFL starter surrounded by a complex techno-sociological maelstrom that touches everything from social media culture’s tendency toward manufactured tribalist consensus to the challenges of epistemology in a post-truth, AI-saturated information ecosystem. 

Great arm though.

What’s Going Right

It’s all on defense. And there is not much of it.

• The Chargers defense ranks 10th in the NFL in yards per game (311.6) and yards per play (5.03). Playing bad opponents (Cardinals) and defense-first opponents (Seahawks, Broncos) has helped a bit.
• Rookie Akheem Mesidor has joined Tuli Tuipulotu and ageless Khalil Mack to give the Chargers a formidable pass rush. 
• The Chargers kept things close against the Bills, Seahawks and Broncos, three opponents with Super Bowl credentials. Each close loss comes with extenuating circumstances: the Bills piled up turnovers and penalties, the Seahawks led 27-6 in the third quarter, Bo Nix plays like he thinks the sideline is the endzone. Still: the Chargers are battling each week, which is a sign that Harbaugh hasn’t lost his motivational edge.

What’s Gone Wrong

Here we go …

• Herbert is tied with Drake Maye for the NFL lead with seven interceptions. He’s second to Deshaun Watson for the NFL lead with 17 sacks. 
• Herbert ranks 31st in the NFL with 3.5 Adjusted Net Yards per Attempt, below Malik Willis and Cam Ward. No one ranks 32nd, because no Bears quarterback has enough pass attempts for the leaderboard.
• Herbert also ranks 31st in DYAR.
• Starting tackles Slater and Alt, a former Pro Bowler and a former first-round pick, are currently injured. Slater is on IR. Backup tackle Trey Pipkins and all-purpose lineman Trevor Penning are also on IR, as is Tyler Biadasz, who was signed to start at center.
• The interior Chargers offensive line is currently manned by three men named Slaughter, Spomer and Strange. That feels symbolic.

• Tight end David Njoku is on IR. Ladd McConkey, ostensibly the WR1, has been in and out of the lineup.
• The Chargers have committed 47 penalties, the third-highest total in the NFL. They lead the NFL with 14 false starts and are tied for second in the NFL with 12 offensive holding penalties.
• Opponents have outscored the Chargers 46-13 in fourth quarters.
• Special teams have been a quiet problem. Derius Davis is averaging just 3.8 yards per punt return. JK Scott had a punt blocked.
• Even when the Chargers were moderately healthy on offense, McDaniel and Herbert never appeared to be on the same page. McDaniel’s offense now looks more like vibrating Electric Football than NFL football.  

Building Blocks

Mesidor and Tuipulotu are fine young edge rushers. Slaughter and Alt may someday form the backbone of a solid offensive line. Omarion Hampton is a bruising runner. Opponents appear reluctant to throw in the direction of cornerback Tarheeb Still.

Every receiver the Chargers have drafted in recent years – McConkey, Quentin Johnston, Tre Harris, several late-rounders – has proven to be a disappointment. It sure is odd how no Parker Washington, Nico Collins or Tet McMillan has arisen over the last six years. Authorities are still searching for whoever is responsible. 

Future Assets

The Chargers have over $70 million in paper cap space for 2027. Tuipulotu is their most important pending free agent. Others, like Mack and Njoku, are aging and/or replaceable.

The Chargers possess all of their 2027 draft picks: no more and no less.

Rebuilding Plan

Let’s start with what the Chargers shouldn’t do:

Don’t fire McDaniel until the end of the year. If McDaniel leaves, Gase becomes the only qualified playcaller on the staff.

Setting Gase’s sparkling personality and Machiavellian tendencies aside for a moment, Gase’s old Peyton Manning-flavored scheme is nothing like McDaniel’s system. Gase would try to simplify a scheme whose defining trait is its complexity. That would just make things worse. 

Ixnay on the Justin Herbert trade talk. National analyst Ben Solak floated a Herbert trade hypothetical on social media this week, assuring readers that it was a “serious” question. My serious answer is that this is an example of podcaster wishcasting. Sorry, folks, you don’t get a Herbert narrative reboot! 

Trading Herbert would be a nuclear option for the Chargers. It would only happen over Harbaugh’s decapitated corpse. The mere suggestion of it indicates the degree to which Herbert is now perceived less as a real quarterback trying to win football games for his employer and fans than as content that the media has created.

But if Herbert/Superteam trade deadline slash fanfic is your yum, I'm probably too much of a yuck for you to have read this far.

Skip the trade deadline. Don’t acquire talent. Don’t trade anyone useful. The Chargers have few players who are both healthy and useful, anyway.

Survive the season. Try to get some guys back. Keep Herbert upright. Keep playing hard. The upcoming schedule will do no favors.

Purge the staff for 2027. If Harbaugh wanders off, fine. If he stays, he has the self-preservation and blame-delegating instincts to fire both McDaniel and Hortiz, whose drafts and acquisitions have not amounted to much. 

Dean Spanos should insist upon a “guardrail” GM for Harbaugh: someone with no Michigan/Ravens/buddy connections. If Harbaugh throws a little tantrum about sharing power, well, the Chargers were planning sweeping changes anyway … 

Two words: Jeremiah Smith. The Chargers should do whatever it takes to draft the Ohio State wide receiver, who is likely to be a Top Five pick. Adding a second receiver from what appears to be an offense-rich draft class would not hurt. 

Yes, I am suggesting that Herbert needs weapons. Stop acting like that’s weird.

Extend Tuipulotu. This is a no-brainer. 

Get real about Slater: He has played four games in two years. He missed most of 2022. There was talk of moving him to guard and Alt to left tackle in the offseason. Whatever they do, the Chargers cannot keep acting surprised and helpless every time their left tackle gets injured. That $70 million in cap space could help them reinforce an offensive line which has failed them for two consecutive seasons.

Bottom Line

This season’s collapse demonstrates what a missed opportunity the 2022-25 seasons were for the Chargers. Three Wild Card berths. Three first-round exits. The Patriots, Broncos and Jaguars zipped past the Chargers in the standings and AFC Super Bowl conversation while they dithered. The Texans have accomplished more in the last four years than the Chargers. 

Herbert does not deserve blame for what happened from 2022 through 2025. But he also doesn’t deserve credit for ... well, what precisely is there for him to earn credit for? The Chargers are 4-7 against the Chiefs in the regular season with Herbert starting. They are 0-2 against the Bills and 0-3 against the Ravens. They are 0-3 in the postseason, of course. 

Herbert hasn't finished in the top five in the NFL in passing yards since 2022. He cracked the top 5 in touchdowns once (2021, with 38). He hasn’t finished in the top 5 in DYAR since 2021. There is an undeniable absence of evidence of excellence in Herbert’s dossier, save for the sort of fiddle-faddle that only breaks containment in media guides due to Herbert’s unique power as a searchable keyword. (Herbert is only the Xth quarterback to reach YY,000 passing yards in his first Z seasons.)

Perhaps the issue is not that Herbert has received too much respect and adulation, but that Jared Goff, Jalen Hurts, C.J. Stroud, Sam Darnold, Baker Mayfield, Jordan Love, Bryce Young and even Kirk Cousins receive far too little. (Brock Purdy deserves a national apology.) Every quarterback who can hold down a starting job, consistently throw for 4,000 yards or so and lead his team to the playoffs now and then is among the 15-20 best humans on earth at their profession. Maybe they should all be praised as gushingly and criticized as gently as Herbert.

That’s a heartwarmingly utopian concept. But there’s a difference between respect/adulation and analysis. The core issue with the Herbert conversation is how blurry that difference became. Herbert “analysis” gave way to cheerleading years ago, then morphed into a content model. 

The film analysts who do real work have been quietly retreating from the indefensible Herbert Hill since his 2024 playoff pratfall, sometimes declaring “Mission Accomplished” as they scurried toward the rescue helicopters. The watch is now kept by latecomers and imitators trying to sound smart and fish for clicks by parroting 2023 catchphrases. The Chargers’ 0-5 start exposed Herbert’s overblown reputation for what it always was: engagement farming which has grown indistinguishable from AI slop.

Mehmed the Conqueror, then still a man younger than my oldest son, looked upon depopulated, dilapidated Constantinople and set upon a project far more challenging than conquest: restoration. He invited artists, artisans and merchants back into the city. He built and rebuilt palaces and marketplaces. Critically, he institutionalized religious tolerance: citizens of his new capital were free to believe what they liked, so long as they accepted the reality of his rule.

Together, we can rebuild Justin Herbert, not as a suffering saint in a mystical realm of magical apples, nor as the hypothetical future quarterback of the Vikings, but as a flesh-and-blood franchise quarterback, still in his early prime, who can help a team that helps him. Believe what you like about the past, so long as you are ready to roll up your sleeves and accept the reality of the present.

Thanks for indulging me. I promise to give this a rest for a while.