The Raiders walked away from week 1 with a convincing 27-14 win over the Dolphins and in six days they will be in Los Angeles to face their division rival Chargers.
The Chargers (0-1) were one of the most disappointing teams in the league on Sunday, and there seems to be two significant dynamics playing out with the Chargers that might be worth keeping an eye on.
Not only did the Chargers lose one of the best defensive coordinators in the league in the offseason, but they also added an offensive coordinator in Mike McDaniel who might not be a good fit with head coach Jim Harbaugh.
Last week, Raider Nation Radio host Q Myers talked about the Harbaugh/McDaniel pairing, and he kicked off a conversation that is only gaining momentum this week.
“I saw videos floating around social media yesterday where it looked like Jim Harbaugh and Mike McDaniel couldn’t even agree on how to hand the ball,” Myers said on the Locked on Raiders podcast last week.
“It looked like Jim Harbaugh was like, ‘No, you hand it off, you do a handoff this way.’ And he was like, ‘No, we do it this way.’ Again, I don’t know the context of it, but it looked like they were already having a disagreement. So it’s hard to say how they’re going to be. They have a really good quarterback. We’ve been told ever since he came into the league that that’s the kind of quarterback you want to create in the lab. But when is he going to take that next step?”
Myers’ comments came before the Chargers embarrassing loss to the Cardinals and everything that played out on Sunday was even more intriguing considering the hype video NFL Network’s Ian Rapoport put out on McDaniel before the game.
“We are going to see things, watching the Chargers, that we have never seen in a Mike McDaniel offense,” Rapoport said on Sunday morning.
“We’ve seen a lot of Mike McDaniel’s offense. We’ve seen what Tua Tagovailoa can do with the Miami Dolphins. McDaniel has gotten a lot of respect around the league for being an offensive innovator. My understanding is there are some plays, a lot of plays, that [McDaniel] has never been able to call that we are going to see this year because he has Justin Herbert with the arm to do it. They are going to unleash and unlock so much of McDaniel’s playbook that he has not been able to call for years… I think it’s fair to say the league is going to be taking note of the things Mike McDaniel can do in this new offense.”
Raiders have been there…
There is plenty of time for McDaniel and Harbaugh to get the Chargers on track, but the situation in L.A. looks a little like what the Raiders went through a year ago with Pete Carroll and Chip Kelly.
Philosophically, Carroll and Kelly were not a good fit.
McDaniel and Harbaugh might be an even more awkward fit.
Harbaugh is as “old school” as any coach in the league and as Rapoport reminded everyone over the weekend, McDaniel is one of the most innovative offensive coaches in the league.
Harbaugh will wait at least another week to see what McDaniel is going to unleash on the league, but you can bet the 62-year-old head coach isn’t going to watch Omarion Hampton only get 12 carries a game and his running backs average 3.2 yards per carry all season.
Right now, the Raiders are 7-point underdogs against the Chargers on Sunday, and an upset win would create some exciting talking points – with one of the biggest having nothing to do with the Raiders, at all.
x: @raidersbeat