Sports

The Chargers are 0-6 and history says the season is over

A 22-6 loss in Kansas City gave Los Angeles its worst start since 2000. Justin Herbert leads the league in interceptions.

Published

5 hours ago

October 21, 2026

Massih Shahbazi

Rows of empty stadium seats, in black and white, beside the headline Zero and six

The Los Angeles Chargers have a franchise quarterback, a coach who has taken a team to the Super Bowl and a stadium that cost billions. What they don’t have, six weeks into the season, is a win.

The Chargers fell to 0-6 with a 22-6 loss to the Kansas City Chiefs on Sunday, Oct. 18, their worst start since 2000, Yahoo Sports reported. Coach Jim Harbaugh said afterward that the team has “to address everything, and especially offensively.”

An offense that can’t find the end zone

The numbers are grim. The Chargers are averaging about 15 points a game, better than only the Miami Dolphins and Tennessee Titans, according to Yahoo Sports. Justin Herbert, the quarterback the franchise has built around, has a league-worst eight interceptions and the NFL’s lowest QBR, a measure of overall quarterback play, at 29.9, according to the same report.

Against Kansas City, the offense managed two field goals. CBS Sports’ game recap told the same story: a defense that kept the game close for long stretches, and an offense that couldn’t do anything with it.

All eyes on the coordinator

The pressure has landed on offensive coordinator Mike McDaniel, the former Miami head coach hired to fix exactly this kind of problem. Questions about his role followed Harbaugh’s postgame comments, Yahoo Sports reported. Pro Football Rumors reported the Chargers are considering offensive changes, and an 0-6 record heading into the bye week will likely produce a shakeup of some kind. Passing game coordinator Shane Day has been mentioned as one option.

That’s the brutal logic of the NFL. Harbaugh’s job is safe enough for now. The coordinators are where change usually starts, because changing them is cheaper and faster than changing anything else.

History says the season is over

The playoff math is close to hopeless. Only one team has ever made the postseason after an 0-4 start: the Chargers themselves, in 1992. None has ever done it after starting 0-6, according to Yardbarker.

The schedule after the bye doesn’t help. The Rams and Texans are next, followed by the Ravens, according to the reporting. None of those is an obvious place to start a winning streak.

What this does to Herbert

The hardest question is about the quarterback. Herbert has been one of the league’s most physically gifted passers since he arrived, and the franchise has paid him like it. A league-worst interception total and a bottom-ranked QBR are not numbers anyone associated with him a few years ago.

There are two ways to read it. One is that the offense around him, the scheme, the line, the receivers, is failing him. The other is that something in his own game has slipped. The first is easier to fix. The second is the one that keeps front offices awake at night, and the next few weeks of film will be studied for signs of which it is.

The bye week clock

A bye week at 0-6 is a strange kind of rest. Players get time to heal. Coaches get time to rebuild a game plan without a game on Sunday. Front offices get time to decide whether the problem is the plan or the people running it. Whatever the Chargers look like when they return against the Rams will show which of those conversations won.

The fans in the expensive seats

Los Angeles is a hard market for the Chargers even in good years. They share a stadium with the Rams, compete for attention with every other team and entertainment option in the city, and have spent years trying to build a local following after moving from San Diego in 2017. An 0-6 start makes that job much harder.

For fans who have bought in, the frustration is sharpened by expectations. Harbaugh’s arrival was supposed to bring toughness and stability. Instead, the team is in the conversation for the worst record in the league, and the power rankings have noticed: Bolts From The Blue’s roundup said the team had hit rock bottom.

The case for patience

There’s a case for not blowing anything up. Six games is a small sample, the defense has kept games competitive, and the bye week gives coaches time to rethink the offense. Some fans and writers have already offered fixes, from simplifying the playbook to changing play-callers, as Bolt Beat did.

But the NFL rarely rewards patience after an 0-6 start. The question in Los Angeles is no longer whether this season can be saved. It’s how much of next season gets decided by what the Chargers change during this bye week.