Following the hiring of offensive guru Mike McDaniel as the team’s new offensive coordinator, many saw the Los Angeles Chargers as a contender in the AFC. This assumption could not be more incorrect, as the Bolts are now 0-7 through the opening eight weeks.

By a wide margin, the Chargers are dead last in the league in points-for, as they are the only NFL club yet to reach 100 points this season. With a lack of chemistry and energy across the lineup, what has truly gone wrong for Los Angeles this campaign?

Nate Tice Deep Dives Into Justin Herbert, Chargers’ Offensive Miscues

Former collegiate quarterback turned NFL analyst, Nate Tice, dissects the situation between Los Angeles’ new offensive coordinator and once highly touted gunslinger Justin Herbert.

Originally a top-10 overall selection in the NFL Draft, Herbert seemed to have all the accolades of an elite modern-day NFL QB. Aside from this embarrassment of a season, the 28-year-old has lived up to the hype relatively well.

During the first six seasons of his professional career, Herbert ranked amongst the top-20 statistically eligible quarterbacks on PFN’s QB Impact Metric. However, this season, the script has been completely flipped as the McDaniel-operated Herbert ranks 35th, good for dead last, using the same grading scale. So, what changed?

Tice believes some of the issues Los Angeles has had thus far are simply trying to make Herbert into something he is not.

“There is a certain type of thrower that [Kyle] Shanahan guys have preferred, and Herbert now, even with his gifts, there is a little bit of square peg round hole going on,” said Tice. “He has a longer throwing motion. If you ever noticed, Herbert gets a lot of balls batted.”

While the former Oregon star is a towering presence at 6’6″, his mechanics may be holding him back.

“He’s a line drive thrower; some guys are just like that,” Tice added about Herbert. “He overcomes the longer line drive motion by throwing it so freaking hard that it makes up for that quarter second-half second it takes him longer.”

Tice continued, “But this passing game, if I’m a defensive lineman and I know the ball is going to come out quick in some way, shape, or form, just get my hands up. There’s just a lack of synergy between his skill set and what the offense wants to do as far as what they want to base out of.”

The ex-Wisconsin Badger goes on to discuss how the Miami Dolphins ran into a similar pattern in the last few years with quarterbacks such as Tua Tagovailoa and Quinn Ewers. The difference in Tice’s eyes is the QB’s throwing motion, with Tagovailoa and Ewers better suited to their respective throwing styles.

Diving further into the Chargers’ problems, the 37-year-old analyst explains the box Herbert has presumably been playing in, saying the offense has no “auto-plays.”

“They have no easy buttons,” said Tice. “There’s no run-game easy button. They have to pull guys which are boom-bust run plays. Passing game-wise, everything has to be downfield, but if everything has to be downfield (because that’s what the Chargers are starting to lean into), the offensive line has to hold up.

“You see, it’s all trickle-down; there’s nothing they can lean on. Receiver-wise, I just watched back this last game, first third down, two of the receivers are running the exact same route right next to each other. They’re both running an angle route, and one of them is Ladd McConkey. It’s just lack of detail.”

Tice concludes with a blunt statement about Los Angeles’ coaching.

“I think it’s poorly coached,” said Tice. “I think it’s a lack of synergy with their skill players– the main skill players who, to me, should be Herbert, [Omarion] Hampton, and McConkey a little bit.”

Luckily for the Chargers, the schedule lightens up a bit as their next three weeks feature contests against a struggling Houston side, an injured Baltimore team, and a sliding New York (Jets) unit.

Head coach Jim Harbaugh will look to get his guys back on track and potentially save his job as they host the aforementioned Houston Texans this Sunday at 4:05 p.m. EST.