There are a few ways to fix a problem in football. You can patch it, you can power through it, or, if you’re the Los Angeles Chargers, you can quietly decide the whole thing needs rethinking. After Justin Herbert absorbed 54 sacks in the 2025 season, the solution was not only better blocking but also bringing in offensive coordinator Mike McDaniel.
How Jim Harbaugh and Mike McDaniel Are Fixing Justin Herbert’s Protection
Jim Harbaugh doesn’t sound like a man politely welcoming a new member. He sounds like someone who’s been let in on a secret.
He called working with McDaniel a “paradigm shift.” Not because McDaniel is reinventing the sport, but because he sees it differently, layered, interconnected, a system where one small illusion can ripple across all 11 defenders.
The foundation of that system, as Harbaugh put it, starts with “probably two ways. One, it’s just less … dropback protection. Straight dropback protection, the defensive line can transition into pass rush immediately,” Harbaugh said.
“The second way is the way the run game and the pass game, play action, are tied together. It takes a second more that you can see defensive linemen [thinking], ‘Oh, now it’s a pass.’
“And then they transition to their move or their bull or their pass rush. They’re going from run defense to pass defense. How valuable is a second? Very valuable.”
Chargers HC Jim Harbaugh believes OC Mike McDaniel’s scheme will keep QB Justin Herbert clean: “It’s less dropback protection.”
“The way the run game, pass game, and play action are tied together, it takes like a second-it’s a second more that you can just see defensive linemen… pic.twitter.com/mWiIOXtYi5
— Alex Insdorf (@alexinsdorf99) March 31, 2026
McDaniel leans into a quick passing game that feels like intent rather than survival. Herbert’s release, already one of his strengths, becomes central to the design.
The ball is out before the rush can fully form, before the pocket has time to collapse into something claustrophobic. Protection, in this sense, starts before the snap and ends the moment the ball leaves his hand.
But if timing is the heartbeat, motion is the misdirection, the sleight of hand you almost miss. McDaniel uses it constantly, not for flash, but for leverage. Pre-snap movement shifts defenders, forces communication, and exposes coverage.
Sometimes it’s subtle, sometimes it’s just enough to pull a defender half a step out of position. That half-step can open a window, delay a blitz, soften an edge. It’s a quiet manipulation, the kind that doesn’t announce itself but shows up in the space Herbert suddenly has.
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And space matters. The offense stretches wide, pulling defenses sideline to sideline until they feel just a little too thin. For a quarterback like Herbert, who has a 79.6 PFSN QB Impact Score, that width is functional.
It creates lanes, options, and exits. What Harbaugh seems to understand, and maybe appreciate most, is that this isn’t about asking Herbert to endure less. It’s about designing an offense where he doesn’t have to.
