We do have the brand new offensive coordinator for your Los Angeles Chargers to be at the bolt with the voice of the Bolts and the new Bolts OC Mike McDaniel, fresh from Miami and looking quite clean, joining us on your Southern California Toyota Dealers celebrity hotline after his big press conference and a little bit of a media whirlwind and then headed back on vacation. Right when this is over, coach, welcome and thank you so much for doing it.
Yeah, I'm very intimidated. You guys's voices are phenomenal. And Joe Shan doesn't talk like this. No, he does not nice reference, He's good.
How has your day been, what's it been like? Give us a little idea of what the process has been like, kind of resetting and looking at your options and ending up here.
Well, I think you know part of the whole process.
It's a whirlwind for sure, and you don't anticipate having all these options, and then you have some options you're afforded to bye bye uh just whether it's good merit or whatever. But ye, it forces you to find some conviction and you don't really know your your compass as to uh you know, if you are in a position where you can you have a couple of teams to that that are that are interested in you, that it
really sets your focus on what's important to you. And you know, I think I found really everything that's vastly important to.
Me here with the Chargers.
I think it's something that uh, you know, I feel very fortunate to be a part of, but very hungry to deliver on, you know, the results that are still out there on the table. You know, I think there's a lot of players here that that have the ability to be great. In My job here is to is to make those players, uh take them from good to great and from great historic and all the things in between.
So I'm fired up, but I'm very convicted and in being here and being a part of this team and what we have in store for us moving forward.
As someone who's kind of been in football as long as you have, kind of take us through sort of your perceptions of Coach Harbaugh getting in a room with him as you decided to be part of this and and what it is that that maybe the two of you have going that that made this feel like the right fit.
Well, I think first and foremost he understood that. You know this, this is really put The most important thing was that we we had some sort of marriage that was consensual, that he didn't try to sell He didn't try to sell me on something he wasn't. He was his authentic self and that really speaks to me. You know, I think some of the core values of football from a starting point we share, particularly from line of scrimmage play and how to win football games and take control
down the stretch of the season. You know, I admired the things that he's done throughout his career. The first time I played against him, one of the best teams I've ever played against. I was in Washington at the time in twenty eleven, played against his Niners team that destroyed us and we had no chance. And then watching him, you know, I actually one of one of the first examples of a coach being being able to make a supreme difference in a program. He gave to me, you know,
at the University of San Diego. You know, I played at Yale and we we drubbed the University of San Diego the year before he got there. And then this first year with Josh Johnson. Uh, you know, I'm gonna get the numbers wrong, but it was like something like
forty five to zero in favor of Yale. And he gets there the next year and drubbed us like fifty five to eight, and I was like, wow, you know, that's what I want in my career, is to be able to be a coach on the sidelines and possibly impact a program to the degree.
That they are.
You know, without him, they were getting drubbed by Yell and they were doing the drubbing on Yale. So I always kept him in my scope. And then, you know, getting feet on the ground here his appreciation that was true. You know, he'd been he'd been very genuine, you know in conversations with me, you know, along my process as a head coach, whether it's owners meetings or you know,
on on the visit in particular. But you know, I could just tell that, you know, he's a he's a guy that there's there are few and far between of you know, I'm a I try to model myself as an authentic version of who I am, and I don't
you know, I'm pretty rigid in that. And Jim Harbaugh to me, ironically, from my perspective, I see him as a visionary of who I try to be, which is a man unique to his own that cares about developing players and cares about winning and spends his time thinking about how he can connect people to have the best
example of football on the field. So I thought it was a very natural fit from the onset, and the more that I've talked to him has just given me the same reasons of conviction why I'm so happy to be here today.
Petros and Money Show. Mike McDaniel is our guest on a five seventy LA Sports, your home of Chargers Information and the Dodgers. When they talk about I mean, you're a well respected offensive man in the highest level of football, and you have earned that over and over again in your career. When people say, hey, this is a modern offensive coordinator, you know, what does that mean to you? Because you've always been pretty balanced guy. People think that
modern offense means throwing the ball every down. I guess in some.
Way, well, you know, I think it's it's trying to, you know, continually reinvent what the football that the subtle details are to how you're doing offense that gives whatever manifestation of defense that's out there. Gives them problems while
staying true to the fundamentals and techniques. You know that that's that's the calling card of you know, really what what I see offenses is there's an illusion of complexity to a degree, and how to patternize all the different things that you can, uh try to get your group of players to operate with supreme conviction since they know the the play and the defense doesn't, and trying to get guys to work in unison to attack how defenses
are problem solving defense at this this particular time in football. So you know, I think I've always been was so fortunate to be placed in the National Football League with who I was placed with, getting a job early with the Shanahans. We we led the league in motions for probably the better half of a decade and a half, you know, all the way back to Houston, and reduce splits and you know, just really doing things that you invent off of necessity or ways to keep a competitive advantage,
not you know, for invention's sake. So attacking the ways defenses are, you know, it's changed in the last handful of years, and to stay ahead of it, you have to continue to change as well. That's something I've never hesitated to do. But the it's the ebbs and flows of the National Football League, and every year the game
changes to a degree. A little bit two years ago we were talking about how the scoring was up across the league and defensive coaches didn't know what they're doing, and now they know what they're doing again.
You know, it's kind of I think.
To be modern, I would say you have to be willing to evolve within season and between seasons, which is something that we will very much do with.
All you mentioned Houston and so think about you with Kyle and Matt Schaub and then Washington. You think about RG three and that historic twenty twelve season. So all the different places you've been, all the different quarterbacks you've been with, how much changes and like what you do based on that position, the guy that touches it all every snap.
It is the number one motivator to you know, to schematic, really focus and where you know you're you're trying to figure out which, you know, what things to feature within that person's game.
It's one of the reasons it's so excited to.
Be here is I don't see a limit to the things that you know, our quarterback is able to do and so you you.
You'd you'd really just try to create.
Something where you can utilize all those skill sets without you know, necessitating him to be at his most elite level of play at all times for us to do well.
You know.
To me, I think I feel so fortunate that we were kind of bouncing around the National Football League. This will be my eighth different team. Within all those stops, You've had different problems to solve from the uh, from the quarterback position, and I think that makes me a much better coach as I sit here today than if I were, you know, just in one system, say with like Tom Brady, and just had Tom Brady doing it the whole time.
You know.
So I think, uh that the you bring up the Washington days and that was such an impactful.
Point in all of our careers.
You know, I was the receiver coach, Sean McVeigh was the tight ends coach, Kyle was.
The O C, and Matt with Floor was the quarterback coach like Miami of Ohio.
And within that we we jumped into a zone read which none of us on staff had ever had experience with. And typically people kind of like get cliniced.
We didn't.
We had to problem solve from uh you know, uh led led by Kyle and uh his uh brashness and and foresight, and we lived in the pistol, which people hadn't done. And uh, you know, I think that was a very formative time for all of our careers where you stopped looking at the execute of you know, I don't look at taking a system and putting players in the same situations that other players were in.
I look at more of how to take advantage.
Of certain types of skill sets, and then the collective kind of brings you into a new trajectory of what, you know, what your offense looks like.
So to me it it, I'm very I would have it no other way.
During it, you don't like to move all the time, and you're you know, you don't feel like you have a solid ground within the National Football League as a coach. It makes it difficult, but it's also forces you to be your best self and continue to evolve, which I plan on taking advantage of this year in twenty twenty six.
Well, this is fascinating, and you've been so generous with your answers. Usually people are a little bit less detailed when it comes to football.
Oh, I will talk my face out.
No, it's a while. We love it. I love it. But usually you know, this is complex for us because when a guy usually comes to La a coach or or you know, it's more fun with the young players. We warned them, you know, about going Hollywood. But you're a man of great contradiction, you know. I mean, yes, I mean you're dressed like you're going to the club, but you get up at four in the morning, yep, and you have all of these I mean, how do
you see yourself in the city of Los Angeles. I mean there's gonna be a lot of shopping.
I mean, yeah, I better be good.
Yeah, you're gonna be here.
I better be good. I better be good to afford it. No, I think.
I like what the world has to offer. There's so many different you know. I had never been on a plane until I was thirteen years old. I was born and raised in a landlocked, landlocked state of Colorado, And you know, I think there's different things to take from all sorts of people in different environments. You know, I've vacationed and spent probably the most time in the country since outside of the places that I've worked has been
in southern California. So you know, every summer I was down in the Laguna Beach for probably got married in Laguna Beach, and and better half, well probably the last decade I've spent almost every summer, so I'm very familiar with the area, a place I've always dreamed of coaching. I think, Uh, you're very fortunate if you're able, uh to call this place home and coach professional athletics. So I plan on taking full advantage of of what this city has to offer and create the the best, newest
improved Mike McDaniel that the world has seen. What does that look like? I don't even know, So how would you?
I don't, I don't, I don't know.
We'll see. I'm looking forward to who knows the artistic community of Laguna Beach through the art of football from there. Well, we appreciate it, coach. Good luck.
Your grandma's very sweet, by the way.
Yeah, thank you, coach. We appreciate it. Good Luck.
That's great.
Thank you.