When the Lions went hunting for a new offensive coordinator, Mike McDaniel looked like the obvious splashy name.
He had already built the kind of résumé that makes front offices lean in. In 2021, his first season as San Francisco’s offensive coordinator, he helped guide a borderline top-ten offense and rode that run all the way to a near-Super Bowl appearance. That stretch turned him into one of the league’s favorite examples of a “hot-shot young offensive mind,” and it eventually landed him the Miami Dolphins head coaching job.
McDaniel’s best work in Miami came with Tua Tagovailoa at quarterback. In 2023, the Dolphins led the league in offensive yards and finished second in points scored, which is exactly the kind of explosion that can make a coach feel tailor-made for another team’s roster.
For Lions fans, it was easy to connect the dots. Jared Goff has stayed healthy, Detroit has plenty of firepower in the run game and at receiver, and Jameson Williams brings the kind of deep speed that calls to mind Tyreek Hill.
So yes, McDaniel made sense. He even interviewed with the Lions. But he ultimately chose to join Jim Harbaugh with the Los Angeles Chargers, and Detroit went in a different direction, hiring former Arizona Cardinals OC Drew Petzing.
Two weeks in, that call looks like the right one.
The McDaniel side of the comparison has been ugly in Los Angeles. Justin Herbert has the kind of talent that should make life easy for any offensive coach, but the numbers haven’t cooperated.
He hasn’t thrown 30 touchdown passes since his second season, hasn’t topped 4,000 passing yards since his third, and is still looking for his first playoff win after going 0-3 in three appearances. The sacks haven’t helped either - Herbert has been taken down 101 times since the start of the 2024 season.
The Chargers did at least make the effort to build around him. They hired Harbaugh, then added McDaniel as the top OC candidate this offseason.
But the results have gone sideways fast. Through two games, Los Angeles sits 23rd in yards and 28th in points.
Herbert has thrown for 401 yards, good for 22nd in the league and still fewer than Tyler Shough put up against the Lions in Week 1. He has two touchdown passes, three interceptions, two fumbles, and a 59.3% completion rate.
That’s a mess, plain and simple.
The Chargers are 0-2 after getting beat 26-14 by the Cardinals and Raiders, two teams that combined for a 6-28 record last season. And the schedule doesn’t exactly offer a soft landing.
Five of their next seven games come against 2025 playoff teams, with the Ravens and Chiefs also looming. A rough start could get a lot rougher in a hurry.
Detroit, by comparison, has reasons to feel better about its choice, even if Petzing hasn’t been perfect.
The Lions are already in the top ten offensively, ranking 10th in yards and fourth in points scored. After all the chatter about “Dan Campbell without Ben Johnson,” Detroit and Chicago both finished Week 2 with 62 points.
Goff has been sharp, tying for the league lead with six touchdown passes and ranking seventh with 533 passing yards. He has also put the ball on the ground three times without officially turning it over, all while taking five sacks behind an offensive line that hasn’t been as steady as it needs to be.
There are still issues to clean up. The Lions have started slowly in both games, and some of Petzing’s sequencing has left something to be desired. The run game has been mostly Jahmyr Gibbs, while Jameson Williams and Isaac TeSlaa have had trouble making their presence felt in the passing attack and haven’t been catching enough of the balls that have come their way.
So this isn’t some flawless start. But it is functioning well enough to win, and that matters.
And after watching McDaniel and the Chargers stumble through the first two weeks, the Lions’ decision looks smarter by the day.
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Dan Campbell Has Reached A Telling Point With Detroit's Defense
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For Detroit, that opens the door to tweaks across the defensive line, linebacker spots, cornerback, and safety, where recent play and injuries have forced the conversation. The biggest hole is at safety, where Avonte Maddox is out for the season with a foot injury, and the Lions now have to sort out how to cover that loss while trying to get the right combination on the field everywhere else. [Read more 🡒]