mike mcdaniel

A year after racking up more miles than any team in the NFL, the Chargers are homebodies.

For the first time in their 10 seasons in Los Angeles, they will open with back-to-back games on their home field — against Arizona and Las Vegas.

What’s more, one of their away games will be at SoFi Stadium, against the host Rams on Nov. 1.

Who knows if less time in an airplane will make a difference, but a franchise that hasn’t won a postseason game since the 2018 season will look for anything to change that trajectory.

It’s worth noting that Jim Harbaugh got his team to the playoffs in each of his first two seasons, and he has a history of turning around franchises in college football and the pros.

And, as they’ll show in training camp, the 2026 Chargers have made some significant changes.

Here are five things to watch in training camp:

Justin time

Chargers offensive coordinator Mike McDaniel speaks at a news conference on June 17.

(Eric Thayer / Los Angeles Times)

It’s the seventh season for Justin Herbert, and the star quarterback is on his fifth offensive coordinator. Will former Miami Dolphins coach Mike McDaniel be the play-designing architect to push him over the top and get him that elusive first playoff victory?

Already, McDaniel has done some tinkering and fine-tuning, tweaking Herbert’s footwork out of the shotgun formation to allow him to get the ball out of his hands a fraction of a second earlier. That should allow his receivers more time to turn up the field and bump up their yards-after-catch numbers.

The ball is coming out even before the receivers have turned their heads for it, and McDaniel has warned them the ball could hit them in the face if they’re not ready. It’s a way to neutralize the pass rush, too.

“If you’re getting the ball out quickly, there’s really nothing they can do about it,” Herbert said of defenders. “You’ve got to find a way to slow them down, and I think that’s just [McDaniel’s] way of taking them out of the game.”

Herbert has absorbed a lot of hits over the years, and he has leaned heavily on his arm strength too.

“In years past, you rely on your arm strength to put the ball exactly where you need to,” he said, “instead of trusting it and just throwing it to a spot and letting them go and get it.”

Next man up

Chargers defensive coordintor Chris O’Leary speaks at a news conference on June 17.

(Eric Thayer / Los Angeles Times)

Jesse Minter did such a solid job as defensive coordinator of the Chargers that he was hired as head coach of the Baltimore Ravens. So in steps his protege, Chris O’Leary, who coached under him at Georgia State and Notre Dame before spending the 2024 season coaching Chargers safeties. Then it was off to Western Michigan for O’Leary last season, where he was defensive coordinator — a year of experience in that job before returning to replace the departing Minter for the Chargers.

If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. That’s expected to be the philosophy of O’Leary, who tutored his Western Michigan players by showing them tapes of the Chargers.

That said, he’s probably not going to follow Minter to the letter. He likely will have the same coverage schemes and rely just as much on All-Pro safety Derwin James, but his defenses might blitz more than Minter’s (the Chargers were near the bottom of the league in that category in 2026) and will look to turn first-round pick Akheem Mesidor into a pass-rushing star.

Odafe Oweh, acquired during the 2025 season in a trade with Baltimore, will play for the Washington Commanders this season. Mesidor, a linebacker who played collegiately at West Virginia and Miami, was selected 22nd overall.

It’s all on the line

Chargers offensive tackle Joe Alt participates in a drill at minicamp in June.

(Eric Thayer / Los Angeles Times)

The Chargers have huge draft capital invested in their offensive line — including spending first-round picks on bookend tackles Rashawn Slater and Joe Alt — and that was supposed to be a strength of the team last season. That went off the rails early, however, with the team losing Slater to a season-ending injury in training camp and Alt soon after the season started.

The line wound up being a disaster with a reshuffled cast virtually every week. One of the few fixtures was center Bradley Bozeman, who Pro Football Focus rated 40th out of 40 players who qualified at that position. He retired after the season.

The Chargers have a new center in Tyler Biadasz, who was released by the Commanders in a cost-cutting move, and Alt (ankle) and Slater (knee) are cleared and ready to go. If this unit can stay healthy, it will look a lot different — and a lot better — than the 2025 version.

Beginning of the ends

Chargers tight end David Njoku speaks during a news conference on May 19.

(William Liang / Associated Press)

In the not-too-distant past, the Chargers had one of the NFL’s premier tight ends in Antonio Gates, enshrined in the Pro Football Hall of Fame last summer. Since, the team has had more downs than ups at the position, although it saw some flashes last season from rookie Oronde Gadsden II, a talented pass catcher.

The Chargers got another infusion of promising tight ends in the offseason, acquiring free agents David Njoku and Charlie Kolar, both of whom thrived elsewhere.

Njoku was a gifted receiver and blocker in Cleveland, catching 81 balls and scoring six touchdowns in 2023. His numbers dropped off last season, though, as the Browns cycled through five different quarterbacks.

Kolar was more blocker than receiver in his four years with the Ravens, and he did that very well. When he did see passes thrown his way, he did a good job of reeling those in.

Oh my, Omarion

Chargers running back Omarion Hampton speaks at a news conference during minicamp on June 17.

(Eric Thayer / Los Angeles Times)

The rookie grade for running back Omarion Hampton? Incomplete. The 2025 first-round pick from North Carolina got off to a good start, including a 128-yard rushing performance at the New York Giants in Week 4, before sustaining a fractured ankle the following week that sidelined him for two months.

In his sophomore season, he should be running behind a far better line and playing for an offensive coordinator with a history of coaching running backs to breakout seasons. Look what De’Von Achane did under McDaniel in Miami, where he ran for 1,350 yards and caught 67 passes last season.

If Hampton can come close to that, he’ll be a popular fantasy pickup.

Justin Herbert is starting from the ground up in Mike McDaniel’s new-look Chargers offense.

The 28-year-old quarterback has dedicated much of the offseason to tweaking his footwork — putting his left foot in front of his right from the shotgun, against traditional NFL form — to fit Los Angeles’ new offensive coordinator’s scheme.

McDaniel prioritizes getting the ball to playmakers in space as efficiently as possible, as he did for four seasons as the Miami Dolphins head coach with speedy wideouts Tyreek Hill and Jaylen Waddle, and envisions Herbert’s flip in footing accelerating and syncing the timing of passes with receivers’ route breaks.

“If guys train it so that they don’t have to think about it and they can be comfortable, you can do a couple things that put the defense in a bind with how you do your footwork,” McDaniel said at Chargers minicamp in El Segundo. “I don’t mandate it. With Justin, I really just showed him where I thought it would be advantageous, and he didn’t blink for a second and was excited to attack it.”

“The patternization in Mike McDaniel’s system has required some footwork changes,” added head coach Jim Harbaugh. “[Herbert’s] been working very hard, very hard at those. And as you would expect, Justin has picked it up.”

McDaniel said he got the idea as an up-and-comer on staffs in Houston and Washington alongside current 49ers head coach Kyle Shanahan and pointed to Matt Ryan and Tua Tagovailoa as recent quarterbacks with whom he has implemented the stance change and reaped positive results.

Herbert, who has been one of those traditional right-handed quarterbacks to have their right foot forward from the shotgun, has embraced his new coordinator’s methodology.

“It’s about playing the way that [McDaniel] sees the quarterback position being played,” Herbert said, “and talking about how we can get the ball to the receivers in a position where they can run with it and allow them to do the things that they’re so good at: making plays.”

To accelerate his adaptation, Herbert has thrown less in practice sessions and done plenty of drills without a football — two markers that are simply unlike the seven-season veteran, who is known to sling the rock plenty at practice and in games.

McDaniel and Harbaugh added that, besides helping Herbert adjust his feet, keeping the ball out of their quarterback’s hands during the offseason will help him stay fresh later in the regular season.

Herbert is on board, but made it clear he does not require any maintenance.

“I’ve thrown a lot of footballs, and it’s May and June and I didn’t think it was as necessary to throw as much now,” Herbert said. “And do everything I can to get the footwork ready and get the offense down. The throws, they’ll be there. We’ve got plenty of time in camp and throughout [organized team activities] to get timing. I think it’s been smart by everyone, taking it easy.”

Herbert added that it’s better to focus on where his feet are now rather than in a live, meaningful game. However, Harbaugh and McDaniel said Herbert is ramping up his throwing in practice with training camp looming.

The Chargers expect big things out of McDaniel’s offense after they averaged a subpar 21.6 points per game in 2025.

Harbaugh and McDaniel are hopeful for career years from Quentin Johnston, Ladd McConkey and Tre’ Harris — exactly what the wideouts want to hear.

“As you all know … the timing, that’s a different aspect for us than we’re used to, but I think it’s great,” McConkey said. “It just gets the ball in the playmakers’ hands and lets us go to work.”

Before any dreams of the Chargers winning a Super Bowl on their home SoFi Stadium turf can come true next season, Herbert must simply get his footing, with his feet and new playbook.

“I’m sure you guys are eager to see him execute in a high regard in the stuff that we’re doing,” McDaniel said. “You got to be patient … that’s been part of the very calculated, very deliberate, intentional process that we take into the offseason.”