Mike McDaniel to Blame for Some of Chargers' Toughest, Best Games on NFL Schedule

The Los Angeles Chargers have some really interesting games on their schedule next season.

There are the battles in the AFC West, of course. They have to deal with Patrick Mahomes and the Kansas City Chiefs again. There's the heating-up battle with the rising Denver Broncos and Bo Nix, too.

And while there is no international game this time out, there are some interesting primetime battles with the likes of the Baltimore Ravens and New England Patriots that could say much about how the overall AFC plays out by season's end.

But arguably some of the most interesting games being overlooked simply have to do with one man:

Mike McDaniel.

Chargers' best games on schedule highlight Mike McDaniel

First, get the obvious out of the way: The Chargers visit the Miami Dolphins in Week 17. There's no Justin Herbert vs. Tua Tagovailoa conversation to be had anymore (and thank goodness for that; it was never as close as the national side painted it).

But there is the whole Dolphins-fired-McDaniel thing that would make it fun. The Dolphins don't project to be very competitive next year, but one can imagine he'd like to find a way to hang 40-plus on the team that canned him.

And then there's the battle with the San Francisco 49ers in Week 15.

It's an easy one to miss. But Sports Illustrated's Conor Orr didn't, locking it down as one of his 11 most anticipated games of 2026 for some pretty interesting reasons.

"The Chargers are nearly as deep as McDaniel's Dolphins teams in terms of footspeed at the playmaking positions and are eons deeper in terms of offensive line depth, physicality and quarterback play," Orr wrote. "This will be the best set of tools at McDaniel's disposal since he coordinated the run game for … Shanahan and the 49ers."

Two offensive geniuses from the same tree putting on a fireworks show? It's must-see television. The 49ers have Mike Evans in town now to help out Christian McCaffrey, while McDaniel has Herbert, a possible top-of-NFL passer if his system can help him reach for a ceiling, never mind the assorted weapons around him.

While it's a croiss-conference game that won't heavily impact the playoff outlook, the coaching lines involved should make it extremely entertaining, if nothing else.

And of course, getting a win before three straight AFC games, two of them divisional battles, to close the season, would be nice.

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This article was originally published on www.si.com/nfl/chargers/onsi as Mike McDaniel to Blame for Some of Chargers' Toughest, Best Games on NFL Schedule.

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This story was originally published May 18, 2026 at 9:00 PM.