KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- Justin Herbert showered and got dressed before most others. He then sat in his locker and stared, unfocused, in the direction of the fruit table for a few minutes. His facial expression was flat, his hair undone. Then he snapped out of it, grabbed his phone and waited to be summoned for another post-loss news conference. He was asked why things haven't clicked for him this year in this Los Angeles Chargers offense.
"I don't know," Herbert said. "If I had the answers, then we'd definitely be having a different conversation."
Coordinators are never made available to the media after games.
Chargers coach Jim Harbaugh tried to speak for offensive coordinator Mike McDaniel -- "the head coach of the offense," as Harbaugh once called him -- and the offense he has failed to produce six games into his turbulent tenure. Asked after Week 4 whether McDaniel was on the hot seat, Harbaugh affirmed his commitment to the man many viewed as a home run hire. He was not so definitive after Sunday's languid [22-6 loss to the Kansas City Chiefs](https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/7702164/2026/10/18/chargers-chiefs-nfl-week-6-result-takeaways/).
"We're going to look at everything," Harbaugh said.
"I feel bad for our players, our team, our coaches, our fans. And (the offense) needs to be addressed."
The Chargers managed only 3 points in each half Sunday.
Herbert threw another inexplicable interception in the process but also connected on a 57-yard rocket that seemed to touch the sky on its way down to wide receiver Quentin Johnston. The offense was right there, with the Chiefs backed up to their 1-yard line.
Then a holding penalty backed things up to the 11-yard line. Kimani Vidal was stopped behind the line of scrimmage. And two Herbert incompletions, including one that sped right through the hands of tight end Oronde Gadsden, forced the Chargers to settle for a field goal. All game, McDaniel steered a wasteful unit.
The defense stuffed standout running back Kenneth Walker on fourth-and-goal from 1 yard out. A three-and-out followed. The punt team recovered a fumble. Another three-and-out followed.
What the Chargers have managed on that side of the ball could hardly qualify as an NFL offense. Harbaugh seldom acknowledges a negative aspect of his team. Sunday left him no choice. The Chargers fell to 0-6 for the first time since 2000, in a game in which their defense held multi-time MVP quarterback Patrick Mahomes to 22 points on his home turf.
The 2000 team was 0-11 before winning its first game. Harbaugh started at quarterback after the Chargers fell to 0-4 and was not relieved of his role until they were 0-9. He experienced the doldrums of a bad start as a player, but never as a coach.
Before this season, Harbaugh had never been 0-3 in his entire coaching career, college or pro.
Arrowhead Stadium might have one of the smallest visitors locker rooms in the NFL. This made the long looks and deep sighs of Chargers players more noticeable.
Starting right guard Cole Strange took a breath as he stood up to field questions. Strange played, and started, for McDaniel during his final season as Miami Dolphins head coach. Strange is one of the most experienced players on the current Chargers offense, and his signing in the offseason was largely tethered to the system McDaniel sought to implement.
Faced with the same question Herbert admittedly had no answer to, Strange pleaded the fifth. "I think that's a better question for Mike," he said. "We all have our own issues, but I'm not going to answer that."
The Chargers offense is comfortably last in expected points added per play, ranking toward the bottom of the league in myriad other traditional and advanced metrics as well. The unit averaged 4.1 yards per play Sunday, compared with 7.4 for a Chiefs offense that had its fair share of shortfalls. Herbert was sacked four times and finished the game as the Chargers' leading rusher with 26 yards on five carries, in part because they trailed for all but the first 3:35 of regulation.
Nobody saw this 0-6 start coming. If you did, claim your lottery ticket.
Miami fired McDaniel, and he immediately became perhaps the biggest OC name on the market. He also interviewed for several head coach vacancies before the Chargers landed him. But in following his instructions, the Chargers have continued to watch Herbert navigate collapsed pockets with an inconsistent run game and a passing attack grounded by an obvious disconnect between quarterback and coordinator. Herbert's eight interceptions lead the league, and he's more than halfway to his career high of 15 -- set in 2021 over 17 starts -- after only six weeks.
You learn in introductory psychology classes that correlation is not causation. But somehow, the offense behind back-to-back 11-win teams became the weak link after McDaniel showed up. He gets it. He's been asked about his hot seat for weeks. He maintained "zero percent entitlement" and said the negative attention was only natural. He said when the Chargers were 0-4 that grand proclamations a quarter into the season would always be 40 percent right or wrong. But being winless going into the bye prompts the question of whether the postseason remains a realistic goal.
No 0-5 team in NFL history has made the playoffs. The Chargers are 0-6. And the offense takes a disproportionate amount of blame. "We have to address everything, and especially offensively," Harbaugh said.
"We're not scoring enough points."
This article originally appeared in [The Athletic](https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/7703503/2026/10/18/chargers-offense-mike-mcdaniel-chiefs/).