The Chargers Are So Dysfunctional They Can't Even Trade Correctly
Like I've been saying since their Week 2 loss to the now 3-6 Cardinals, the Chargers season is over. But there have been a few things the organization could do to salvage some sort of hope for the future.
The first was trading to build up draft capital. Besides foundational pieces like Herbert, Alt, Derwin James and Tuli, anyone should have been on the table. Slater would be great to move, but his contract + dead cap + injury history makes that impossible. So that leaves players like Khalil Mack, Donte Jackson, Elijah Molden, Dalvin Tomlinson, QJ and more. The one deal this team managed to get done was swapping a 4th and 5th for LB Daiyan Henley. To be clear, I like him a lot. Super charismatic, great leader and he played at a very high level a couple years ago. But his play has gone down and, in a dead season on an expiring deal, that's a fine trade to make even to a division rival. But it seems like the team can't even do that right, as they apparently tried to sell Denver a lemon that got exposed in his physical. So now they sheepishly need to return a team captain and vocal leader to their team who will be understandably pissed. Great job, Joe Hortiz!
The second was replacing McDaniel and/or Harbaugh. I've talked about it ad nauseam at this point, but McDaniel will obviously go down as the most disappointing staff hire in Chargers history. Harbaugh's last OC, Greg Roman, was a disaster that lead two of the worst offensive lines of the Herbert era, a shit run game, and a passing attack that made Kurt Warner's head spin. SO, obviously, McDaniel should fix that! He has inventive passing concepts and typically a strong run game. Pairing him with a QB that can throw more than 30 yards downfield and that can take a beating without going to the IR should have been a dream come true.
*BUZZER NOISE*. Instead of building the playbook around Herbert, McDaniel seemingly chose to run the same offense he ran in Miami. But instead of doing it with prime Waddle, Hill and Achane, he has Quentin Johnston, Tre Harris and Omarion Hampton. The result is a lackluster run game, a non-existent pass game and the worst offensive line in all of football. McDaniel clearly has to go. I also don't think there is a compelling case to keep Harbaugh. He is a CEO coach managing a company in freefall and there isn't even a Chinese honeypot to blame. I do not think the Spanos family will move on from Harbaugh barring a somehow worse disaster than the 63 point Raider game that got Brandon Staley fired, but I am shocked they have tolerated McDaniel still being on the team.
The last is moving on from GM Joe Hortiz. I think you can credit him for a few things since taking over for Tom Telesco. He has done a great job in finding diamonds in the rough. Discards that other teams give up on that went on to have a maxed out season with the Chargers. However, almost all of these wins came on the defense (Poona Ford, Kristian Fulton, Da'Shawn Hand, Ben St-Juste, Donte Jackson, Elijah Molden, Teair Tart) under DC Jesse Minter.
He has been absolutely abysmal at building out this offense. I think you could argue his only two big wins in 3 years were his first two draft picks, Joe Alt and Ladd McConkey (And both have been relatively injury prone). Outside of that, it's been pretty disasterous. Especially in free agency.
Yea, this is shit. No other way to look at it. A single top-line OL in the oft-injured Joe Alt surrounded by garbage. A single WR1/2 in Ladd surrounded by nothing. You can see Hortiz is obsessed with the idea of redeeming first round pick busts. Hurst, Leatherwood, Reagor, Lance, Becton, Penning, Strange. He thinks that they have the brain geniuses in the building to unlock what nobody else in the NFL could figure out.
Advertisement
This is a rudderless ship with no hope of reaching land until some major changes are made.