The Chargers looked at an 0-6 start over their bye week and decided to keep Mike McDaniel calling plays. If you're in a superflex or two-quarterback league, that's your cue to go ask what Justin Herbert costs. The manager who owns him has spent six weeks waiting for someone in Los Angeles to blow it up, and Jim Harbaugh just told them nobody's coming.
I won't pretend the season is anything but ugly. ESPN has the Chargers averaging 15.0 points a game, worst in the league, after a 22-6 loss in Kansas City where they managed 259 yards. They're the last winless team in the NFL. Herbert is tied for the league lead with eight interceptions, and some of them went straight to defenders. McDaniel rebuilt his shotgun stance in the spring, left foot in front of the right, and so far the results have gone backward. If you started him every week, I'm sorry. I'd be cranky too.
Here's the part your league-mate isn't pricing. A playcaller change was the one thing that could have moved Herbert's value in a hurry, and the option's gone. Harbaugh said the decision came out of the team's self-scouting, that they turned over "every stone," and that they're "very confident in Mike." Herbert went further and took the blame for the offense: "It's not Mike's fault. The guys are open, plays are being made." You can call that a quarterback being loyal. I'd call it the guy throwing the ball telling you where he thinks the problem lives.
And the system has a history. McDaniel arrived with one of the best reputations in the league as a playcaller. His Miami offense put 70 on Denver in 2023, and Tua Tagovailoa made his only Pro Bowl in his second year under him, after the same kind of footwork overhaul Herbert went through this spring. Was Year 1 in Miami this bad? I don't know, and neither does anybody who tells you they're sure. What I do know is that the Chargers chose patience with a plan they believe in, and a quarterback's price usually bottoms out right before the plan either works or gets scrapped. We just found out it isn't getting scrapped.
The honest risk is that this is simply who the 2026 Chargers are. Ladd McConkey is back at practice but still in the concussion protocol, Brenen Thompson wasn't practicing Wednesday with a quad injury, and the help Herbert needs isn't all healthy yet. If you're contending this year and need points Sunday against the Rams, he's not your answer, and I wouldn't pay a contender's price for him. Check what's left on his RSO deal in your league before you call, because a quarterback with years remaining is worth far more to you here than one you'd have to bid on again in the spring.
But you don't buy a franchise quarterback at full price. You buy him the week his owner runs out of reasons to hope. That week is now. Send an offer that sounds like you're doing them a favor, and see if they're tired enough to agree.
