From Justin To Mikey.

Justin Herbert and Mike McDaniel go together like orange juice on cereal.

Herbert, as you well know, has long been social media’s perfect son, a talented passer who was helicopter-parented to class valedictorian by the QB Tiermaster Hivemind.

McDaniel is the NFL’s reigning avant garde artiste. His offenses, like found-footage documentaries at the Telluride Film Festival, are often more *interesting* than effective.

Herbert, who goes through offensive coordinators the way Dairy Queen goes through plastic spoons, needed a new guru this offseason. McDaniel, fired by the Dolphins, needed a quarterback who could throw harder than Little League Uncle, plus a head coach who could compensate for his slouch-and-shrug motivational skills. On paper, Herbert and McDaniel looked like Mick Jagger and Keith Richards, or maybe Andre 3000 and Big Boi. (The video in the link is extremely NSFW.)

Against the Cardinals in Week 1, however, Herbert and McDaniel looked more like Gregg Allman and Cher. 

So far, it seems that Herbert and McDaniel are two acquired tastes that taste awful together.

Herbert is Herbert. He’ll throw some of the prettiest passes you ever did see. Put him in any sort of high-leverage situation, however, and suddenly his supporting cast and gameplan just aren’t good enough, leading to sacks, deflections, interceptions and stalled drives. He has never lived up to his early-career expectations, so his fans/supporters/enablers stopped setting them. 

McDaniel is McDaniel. Every play comes with a fresh new formation, some clever pre-snap motion, a little misdirection and a designed pump-fake or two. He’d be twice as good if he were half as creative. If you love analyzing game film as if it’s T.S. Eliot poetry, you adore McDaniel. If you hate false starts, motion penalties and double-reverses in situations where a power run would be more appropriate, well, you probably stopped watching Dolphins football in 2024.

The Herbert-McDaniel merger started out swell last Sunday against the Cardinals. Herbert delivered fastballs straight to Ladd McConkey’s hands. McDaniel’s wrinkles created opportunities for other playmakers. 

Check out this second quarter completion to Oronde Gadsden. Tre’ Harris’ insert motion on the left pulls the Cardinals cornerback out of position, allowing Gadsden to leak up the left sideline. Quick play-action to the right leaves linebackers out of position to give chase.  Simple. Elegant. Effective. Theoretically, Gadsden’s catch-and-run was the sort of layup which can perfectly complement Herbert’s rainbow three-pointers from downtown.

Ah, but the Chargers reached the red zone a few plays later, and the honeymoon promptly ended.

After a failed first-and-goal pitch to Keaton Mitchell, McDaniel called one of those swing passes with a lead blocker, the kind that the 49ers run effectively and worked well for the Dolphins in years past. Omarion Hampton had Alec Ingold in front of him and room to run along the left flat, but Herbert didn’t seem interested. Better to step up and overthrow McConkey in the back corner of the end zone instead!

Third-and-goal. Time for one of McDaniel’s WTF formations: Hampton and Ingold on the same side of the formation, with two receivers lined up tight left in front of them and Herbert in shotgun. Hampton and Ingold did the lead block/swing pass thing again. Herbert ignored them again, rolling right when no one was open, then scrambling to the three-yard line.

Fourth-and-goal. If you thought Herbert was going to punch it in, you clearly didn’t watch the 2025 playoffs. Fourth-and-goal from the three-yard line is Herbert’s cue to hold the ball too long and take a sack or toss a high 125-mph fastball into the back of the endzone. McDaniel did Herbert no favors on fourth down by emptying the backfield, eliminating any play-action, misdirection or extra protection. You know, the McDaniel stuff. So no one got open.

The opening Chargers series of the third quarter brought more punk-rock-with-pan-flute disharmony: Herbert in full-house pistol formations, Herbert half-heartedly faking toss pitches, then taking off for short scrambles.

The Cardinals climbed out to a 16-7 lead. The Chargers built a touchdown drive out of a kickoff out of bounds, a 48-yard pass interference penalty and a short Herbert dart to McConkey. The Chargers trailed 16-14 when they got the ball at their own 20 to start the fourth quarter. 

Veteran Herbert skeptics – Herbert realists is a better term after all these years – know that the fourth quarter is Herbert’s witching hour. He’s led five fourth-quarter comebacks since the start of the 2023 season, a low total for an acclaimed quarterback. The comebacks he does lead are often pretty gnarly. In 2025, he “came back” against the Eagles in Week 14 in what was really a back-and-forth field goal fest. His Week 6 comeback against the Dolphins was one field goal drive after the Dolphins erased a 26-13 fourth-quarter deficit. If the Chargers enter the fourth quarter trailing by more than a field goal, then it’s time for Herbert to be tragically betrayed by everyone around him.

So here’s how the Chargers’ first series of the fourth quarter played out:

First Down: Sack. Ingold runs some loop-de-loo pre-snap motion. Guard Cole Strange and Hampton whiff while blocking defender Jordan Burch. Herbert stares Quentin Johnston down, looking for a deep shot up the left sideline, and is doomed by the time he tries to find his secondary option.

Second-and-14: Harris lines up in the backfield, motions toward the left sideline, catches a quick screen and dives for three yards. McConkey left the game with a rib injury, which may explain the designed touch for Harris. McDaniel lobbied for the Chargers to sign Mitchell to run this sort of play, but may have forgotten about him. 

Third-and-11: Off-target pass to Johnston near the right hashmark. Herbert appeared to rush things a bit. 

Fourth-and-11: Blocked punt to set up an easy Cardinals touchdown. Can’t blame Herbert and McDaniel for that!

No worries. A 23-14 deficit with 11:39 to play against a bottom-feeder should be manageable for a franchise quarterback and playbook wizard. Herbert started his next series with a few crisp passes in a row. But then … 

Kevin Harlan’s call on that interception is astounding. “Oh, he’s got Davis!” Harlan exclaims. No, no he does not. Derius Davis has a step on his cornerback, but deep safety Andrew Wingard is right there. On the coaches’ film, Wingard can be seen rolling with Herbert and providing deep support against Davis long before the ball is thrown. Davis was not remotely open. Herbert made a poor decision at a point in the game where the Chargers could still have mounted a comeback by moving down the field in 10-yard chunks. But, of course, McConkey was hurt and the center’s a rookie and …

The Herbert Hero’s Journey has grown rather stale lately, which is why I have not flogged my prized hobbyhorse very often in the last year or so. In some ways, Herbert’s minstrels have accomplished their mission. They’ve normalized Herbert as the one quarterback whose reputation is not tethered to his accomplishments in any way, granting him diplomatic immunity from the criticism, nitpicking and stinky-poo faces (warranted or otherwise) that hound every peer from Jalen Hurts to Brock Purdy to Jared Goff, allowing him to stack seasons which are indistinguishable (to non-connoisseurs, at least) from the ones that made Kirk Cousins a punchline. 

But Herbert agitprop has also become a target of mockery across the Internet. Too many wannabe experts have tried too hard to parrot too hoary a party line for too long, and the fantasy/wagering communities (for whom results matter) and smart-alecks (always eager to scribble outside party lines) have noticed. Herbert-glazing social posts have become like the sky beams in superhero movies, eliciting more eye-rolls than cheers. The tastemakers have mostly moved on to more topical subjects like Jordan Love.

In other words, Herbert jumped the shark, probably when he threw four interceptions against the Texans in the 2024 playoffs. The show goes on, but it’s no longer cool. Herbert’s booster club hasn’t given up on him, but they aren’t wearing his jersey to school anymore.

McDaniel had (and still has) the potential to reinvigorate the Herbert storyline. The narrative is tight and tidy. Tua Tagovailoa was once Herbert’s ersatz rival, the one foe he ever convincingly conquered. McDaniel was Tua’s groovy guru. McDaniel’s play designs and game plans are undeniably fascinating in that showy way that makes them fun to diagram on blogs and podcasts, and his Dolphins fielded a historic offense for about three months in 2023. Imagine what McDaniel could do with a REAL quarterback! Prognosticators, speculators and cineastes spent seven months imagining. I was asked about the Herbert-McDaniel merger on a few offseason radio shows and podcasts, and I had to admit that the combination sounded intriguing. So did Herbert and Kellen Moore. So did Herbert and Jim Harbaugh. 

Rest assured that if the Chargers had beaten the Cardinals 34-10, the way most of us thought they could and should have, Herbert and McDaniel would have received the Palme d’Or this week, with social media Letterbox reviewers breaking down every successful play in meticulous detail. It would be part victory lap, part Mardi Gras parade, with few pauses to acknowledge that it was only Week 1 and the opponent went 3-14 last year.

We may still get the hosannas and GIF threads when the Chargers face the Raiders in Week 2; best to fire them off before that upcoming Bills/Seahawks/Chiefs/Broncos run. Until then, indulge me blowing a little raspberry into the awkward silence. 

The safest conclusion to draw after Week One is that Herbert remains far more impressive than capable, while McDaniel’s offense is an overengineered sportscar with a D+ reliability rating. The quarterback and coach demonstrated on Sunday that they are what they have always been, if not more so. The Chargers will win a bunch of games this year, but it’s hard to cast them as even a semi-serious threat to the resurgent Chiefs/Bills/Ravens when they are making stars out of Andrew Wingard and Jordan Bunch.

One of the pitfalls of being a Herbert realist is the company you keep. Discovering that Dan Orlovsky criticized Herbert and McDaniel on the Punts McAfart show does nothing for my confidence in my own thesis. But here’s Orlavsky’s take on what he saw in Week 1:

"Way too much pistol, way too much gun. Justin got locked onto receivers far too often, meaning, I am only throwing to this guy, instead of getting to his second or third read. That is what happens in the McDaniel system. They can become so convicted because they think the play call is so good and it worked all eight times you repped it in practice."

Tagovailoa was often criticized for staring down his first read, among many other things. Herbert was supposed to open up other elements of McDaniel’s offense. It never occurred to anyone that McDaniel might close off Herbert’s options instead. It’s hard to find that second read when he’s doing a little tarantella around the line of scrimmage or setting up an intricate swing pass you don’t want to throw.

Filmmaker M. Night Shyamalan and author Nicholas Sparks are collaborating on a supernatural romantic thriller titled Remain. Sparks, author of The Notebook, has a huge, devoted fanbase that loves everything he does, no matter how cloying. Shyamalan, auteur of The Sixth Sense, is brilliant but overindulgent and too enamored with plot twists which are no longer surprising. The parallels to Herbert and McDaniel are obvious. 

Remain could be an example of a writer and director complementing each other’s strengths while hiding their shortcomings. But it’s just as likely to be a weepy schmaltz-fest until (Surprise?) we discover that the lovers are characters in a video game or something.

Remain will be in theaters on February 5th, 2027. Based on the early reviews, Herbert and McDaniel will once again be out of theaters by mid-January.