The Los Angeles Chargers are 0-6, and the pressure on head coach Jim Harbaugh and offensive coordinator Mike McDaniel is building quickly. On the latest episode of 13 Personnel, my co-hosts Easton Freeze and Austin Stanley and I spent a big chunk of the show on the NFL’s next potential firings after the Chris Ballard news.

The Chargers were the first name off the board.

Easton made the case that Los Angeles is the most obvious candidate in the league right now. It is hard to argue with him. The Chargers lost again and managed only two field goals, finishing with six points on the day.

Easton described tuning in and watching Justin Herbert hit Quentin Johnston on a deep ball that set the offense up at the 1-yard line.

“Woo, there’s some life!” Freeze said of his reaction in the moment.

Then a penalty pushed the Chargers back, and they settled for a field goal. That sequence pretty much sums up the season so far.

How did it get this bad for the Chargers?

On paper, this was supposed to work.

Herbert has been a very good quarterback for a long time, even with some consistency issues in big moments. Harbaugh was the obvious choice for the head coaching job and had made the Chargers the most competent they had been in years. Then Los Angeles landed Mike McDaniel, who was the most coveted name in the offensive coordinator cycle this past spring and drew head coaching interest as well.

He chose the Chargers specifically to work with Herbert.

Instead of Harbaugh’s familiar rallying cry of “Who’s got it better than us?” Easton joked that the question has turned into “who’s got it worse than us.”

The real issue, from Easton’s point of view, is fit. He doesn’t believe Herbert is a quarterback who fits the Shanahan mold that McDaniel brings with him. In his previous setup, Herbert had more freedom to read the play after the snap and make quick decisions with more responsibility on his plate. The McDaniel system front-loads the work before the snap and is designed to put the ball exactly where the play dictates. Easton simply doesn’t think the two are compatible.

He also pointed to the message coming from the podium. Here is how Easton summed up what Harbaugh has been conveying to reporters: “We got to look at everything. We, you know, we’re not scoring anywhere close enough points. We’re near the bottom of DVOA. We’re near the bottom in points scored. We’re zero and six. We are a disaster, and the offense is a real problem.”

His verdict was blunt. He believes McDaniel is going to be fired, and soon.

McDaniel first, then Harbaugh?

When Austin asked whether this plays out as McDaniel first and Harbaugh second, Easton said yes, unless Los Angeles turns things around in a dramatic way. The upcoming schedule doesn’t help. The Chargers still have to see the Rams, Texans, and Ravens.

I asked Easton how long Harbaugh’s leash is after this start, and whether the organization might give him a mulligan for one bad season. His answer was that the leash is this year. On the current trajectory, he thinks Harbaugh is gone at the end of the season. He doesn’t expect the Chargers to go winless, but he doesn’t see where the turnaround comes from either.

Easton also mentioned not being shocked if the Chargers would fire McDaniel and hand the offense over to Adam Gase. He was not encouraged by that idea.

Nobody on the show questioned Herbert’s status. He is not going anywhere, and the coaches will be shown the door long before the organization considers him the problem. If you ask me, that is the easiest part of this to understand. Firing an offensive coordinator is a far simpler decision than moving on from a franchise quarterback.

What comes next for both coaches?

There’s a lot of intrigue in a hypothetical scenario where both Harbaugh and McDaniel are out after the season.

McDaniel was the hot commodity just a few months ago. Easton and I agreed that he would still be in more demand than Harbaugh, even though he is more likely to be let go first.

Harbaugh is the harder case. Easton called him part of a dying breed of leader-of-men coaches, putting him in a group with Pete Carroll and Mike Tomlin. He doesn’t think Harbaugh is a bad coach. He does think the league is moving in a direction that makes it tougher for a coach like that to land his next job.

For now, the Chargers have to find a way to stop the bleeding. If they can’t, the decisions in Los Angeles could start coming very quickly.