The Raiders already opened the season with a 27-14 win over the Dolphins, and now they head to Los Angeles in six days for a divisional matchup with the Chargers. That game carries more than the usual AFC West edge because the Chargers are already dealing with some early-season noise.
Los Angeles dropped to 0-1 on Sunday, and the problems around the team go beyond the final score. One layer is the loss of one of the league’s top defensive coordinators from the offseason. The other is the new offensive setup, where Mike McDaniel is now working alongside head coach Jim Harbaugh - a pairing that has already started drawing attention.
Raider Nation Radio host Q Myers put that conversation into motion last week on the Locked on Raiders podcast.
“I saw videos floating around social media yesterday where it looked like Jim Harbaugh and Mike McDaniel couldn’t even agree on how to hand the ball,” Myers said on the Locked on Raiders podcast last week.
“It looked like Jim Harbaugh was like, ‘No, you hand it off, you do a handoff this way.’ And he was like, ‘No, we do it this way.’
Again, I don’t know the context of it, but it looked like they were already having a disagreement. So it’s hard to say how they’re going to be.
They have a really good quarterback. We’ve been told ever since he came into the league that that’s the kind of quarterback you want to create in the lab.
But when is he going to take that next step?”
That was before the Chargers’ ugly loss to the Cardinals, and Sunday only added fuel to the conversation. NFL Network’s Ian Rapoport also leaned into the possibilities around McDaniel’s offense before the game.
“We are going to see things, watching the Chargers, that we have never seen in a Mike McDaniel offense,” Rapoport said on Sunday morning.
“We’ve seen a lot of Mike McDaniel’s offense. We’ve seen what Tua Tagovailoa can do with the Miami Dolphins.
McDaniel has gotten a lot of respect around the league for being an offensive innovator. My understanding is there are some plays, a lot of plays, that [McDaniel] has never been able to call that we are going to see this year because he has Justin Herbert with the arm to do it.
They are going to unleash and unlock so much of McDaniel’s playbook that he has not been able to call for years… I think it’s fair to say the league is going to be taking note of the things Mike McDaniel can do in this new offense.”
The Raiders know what it looks like when coaches are not on the same page. A year ago, they dealt with a similar kind of mismatch with Pete Carroll and Chip Kelly.
In that case, the fit was not right philosophically. This Chargers situation could be even more awkward.
Harbaugh brings the old-school edge. McDaniel is one of the league’s most creative offensive minds. That contrast is exactly why the pairing is getting so much scrutiny.
There is still time for the Chargers to settle in, and Harbaugh will get at least another week before he sees what McDaniel really plans to roll out. But the head coach is not likely to be thrilled if Omarion Hampton keeps getting only 12 carries a game and the running backs keep averaging 3.2 yards per carry.
For the Raiders, the betting line says they are 7-point underdogs on Sunday. If they pull the upset, the reaction will go well beyond Las Vegas - and one of the biggest storylines would have nothing to do with the Raiders themselves.
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