The Chargers are trying something different in the middle of a miserable start, and it involves where Mike McDaniel spends his Sundays.
McDaniel will keep his play-calling duties, but he’s shifting from the sideline to the coaches’ booth beginning with Week 9 against the Houston Texans. The move comes with Los Angeles sitting at 0-7 and searching for any sign of life from an offense that has gone nowhere fast.
“I want to see adjustments for myself and communicate to the position coaches appropriately. Things we can focus on between series,” McDaniel said Thursday.
From the booth, McDaniel should have a cleaner look at how defenses are attacking the Chargers, which could help him spot problems and make quicker tweaks from drive to drive. That’s the hope, anyway. The real question is whether a better vantage point can actually lead to better football.
So far, the Chargers haven’t found a dependable rhythm, and that has only turned up the heat on McDaniel to solve the mess. Injuries and a thin group of weapons have made the job tougher, but those issues can’t keep carrying the whole explanation for an offense that has struggled to produce.
Houston presents another tough challenge, and if the Chargers lose again, they’ll fall to 0-8. At that point, the questions around McDaniel’s future figure to get even louder.
For now, the move to the booth is the latest attempt to shake loose an offense that badly needs one. The Chargers need points.
They need consistency. And they need something that looks like a functioning attack before this season slips any further away.
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