The “Problem” Everyone Wants to Solve

If you’ve been plugged into any Chargers draft coverage this spring, you’ve heard the refrain: the guard spots need to be addressed. Cole Strange graded out at 54.9 for the season in Miami. Trevor Penning posted a 53.6 in his first year at guard. Those numbers look ugly in a vacuum, and the natural instinct is to treat the position as a Day 1 or Day 2 draft priority.

I get it… when you see two projected starters grading in the low-to-mid 50s, it feels like a fire that needs to be put out with premium capital.

But here’s the thing: that instinct is based on an assumption that doesn’t hold up when you actually look at how Mike McDaniel’s offensive lines have been built over the past five years. The guard room isn’t broken. It’s operating exactly within the range that McDaniel has not only tolerated but schemed around for his entire tenure as an OC and head coach.

And once you understand that, the entire draft calculus shifts.

McDaniel Has Never Had Two Good Guards

This isn’t hyperbole. Across five seasons calling plays (2021 San Francisco as OC, 2022 through 2025 Miami as HC), Mike McDaniel has never once fielded an offensive line where both guard spots graded above 60.0 per PFF. Not once.

Let that sit for a second. The guy fans hammered the table for because of his ingenuity and genius as an offensive guru has produced top-ten offenses in multiple seasons despite consistently weak guard play. Robert Hunt was a bright spot when healthy, but he was always paired with a liability on the other side. In 2023, the Dolphins ranked top-three in yards per play leaguewide. And in every single one of those seasons, at least one guard was grading below 57, and usually one was below 47.

The scheme is designed for this. Motion, misdirection, quick-game passing, combo blocking schemes. McDaniel’s entire offensive architecture is built to protect interior weaknesses by moving the point of attack away from stationary one-on-one matchups. When your guard is a 40-grade player, you don’t ask him to anchor against a 90-grade interior rusher. You make sure that rusher is wrong about where the play is going before he ever gets there.

Here’s how every McDaniel OL stacks up, ranked by the average PFF blocking grade of the starting five (determined by snap count):

● Bot 2 Avg   ★ Top 3 Avg   ◆ Full 5 Avg

Look at that bottom-2 column. Scenario A’s 54.2 average at the guard spots is better than or equal to what McDaniel worked with in four of his five seasons. Only the 2021 49ers (64.3) and 2024 Dolphins (54.6) had a stronger bottom pair. The 2025 Dolphins, his most recent team, ran it back with a bottom-2 average of 41.7. That included Jonah Savaiinaea at 28.4, the single worst starting offensive lineman grade of McDaniel’s entire career.

Strange and Penning at 54? That’s not a glaring hole that demands a Day 1 or 2 guard to be drafted. It’s Mike McDaniel’s brand. If a guard is BPA in any of the Chargers’ early picks it would no doubt be a solid selection, but Hortiz won’t have a knee-jerk reaction to draft a guard early knowing McDaniel’s history.

The Top of the Line Is What Matters

McDaniel’s best offensive lines weren’t defined by five solid starters working in harmony. They were defined by elite left tackle play, a good-to-great center, and a serviceable right tackle.

The success of the 49ers and Dolphins was tied directly to Trent Williams and Terron Armstead’s availability, and it’s no surprise that the Dolphins unraveled in the first year of Armstead’s retirement. In both cases, the top-end talent created enough surplus to compensate for significant weaknesses elsewhere.

The 2026 Chargers’ projected top three is Rashawn Slater (90.9), Joe Alt (79.0), and Tyler Biadasz (70.7). That’s an average of 80.2, the best trio McDaniel has had since his San Francisco days, with the potential to surpass even that elite unit.

Slater and Alt together represent something McDaniel has never had: two elite bookend tackles on the same roster. The Chargers give him two franchise tackles, both under 27, both under contract long-term. That changes the entire equation.

The Yearly Breakdown

Cole Strange’s Grade Needs Context

Strange’s 54.9 full-season PFF grade in Miami is the number everyone will cite as evidence that the Chargers need a guard upgrade. But the full picture tells a much more nuanced story.

Strange was an in-season signing in Miami. He wasn’t there for OTAs. He didn’t get a training camp in McDaniel’s system. He was thrust into a starting role and asked to learn one of the NFL’s more complex blocking schemes on the fly, in real time, during live games.

But the back half of his season looked meaningfully different. Over his final seven games, Strange was averaging PFF grades of 64.5. That’s not a projection or a hope. That’s what happened once he had enough reps in the system to stop thinking and start playing.

The McDaniel Center Effect

If there’s one pattern in McDaniel’s coaching history that should have the Chargers excited, it’s what happens to centers in his system.

Connor Williams was a career guard in Dallas before McDaniel converted him to center. He posted a 78.4 in Year 1 and was on pace for 86.5 before a torn ACL ended his 2023 season. Aaron Brewer had never graded above 60 in Tennessee. Under McDaniel, he hit 74.8 in Year 1 and then exploded to 87.4 in Year 2, becoming one of the best centers in football.

Biadasz enters at a higher baseline than either Williams or Brewer had before joining McDaniel. But the more compelling case for his upside isn’t just the number. His flashes in Washington centered around elite movement skills when pulling or working out in space, which is a primary function of a McDaniel center. That skill set gives him the potential to take the biggest leap of the three, something that could vault this offensive line into one of the best units in the league.

This is the biggest variable in the entire projection. Not the guards. The center.

Even the Backup Plan Isn’t a Problem

Whether Slater makes it all the way back from his patellar tendon tear or needs additional recovery time, the contingency plan still holds up. If it’s Joe Alt at left tackle with Trey Pipkins at right tackle, the line still looks like a McDaniel offensive line.

Pipkins at Tackle (Guard Year Excluded)

Scenario B produces a full-unit average of 64.2, right in line with the 2022 and 2024 Dolphins units that averaged 66.6 and 66.7 respectively.

BPA in Rounds 1 and 2. That’s the Luxury.

The Chargers don’t have a position group so broken it demands a specific pick with premium capital. That means Rounds 1 and 2 are genuinely open. If the best player available at 22 is a defensive tackle, take him. You aren’t forced into reaching for a guard at a price point that doesn’t match the return.

And here’s something worth considering: while fans may feel anxious about the guard situation, McDaniel might have his eyes on something else entirely. Despite the narrative that he built his Miami offense around the weapons already on the roster, that claim doesn’t hold up under scrutiny. The only wide receiver McDaniel carried over from the previous regime was Jaylen Waddle. He aggressively acquired new, explosive talent: a blockbuster trade for Tyreek Hill, and a series of draft picks spent on speedster skill players like De’Von Achane, Jaylen Wright, and Malik Washington. McDaniel doesn’t inherit an offense. He builds one around elite athletes. Don’t be surprised if, while fans are clamoring for a guard, McDaniel is actually eyeing another elite athlete to plug into his offense.

Round 3: Protect the Center, Not the Guard Spot

If a scheme-fit center is available in Round 3, that’s the smarter play than a guard.

The 2023 Case Study

In Week 14 of the 2023 season, Connor Williams tore his ACL. Over the final three regular season games without him, Miami scored 22, 19, and 14 points before managing just 7 in a wild card loss, 26-7. McDaniel’s scheme can absorb a weak guard. It cannot absorb a center who doesn’t command the blocking assignments, identify the fronts, and execute the combination blocks the entire system runs through.

The 2023 Dolphins were 7-2 in games Williams started and 4-5 in games he didn’t. That split isn’t a coincidence. It’s the clearest evidence in McDaniel’s entire tenure of how central the center position is to everything his offense does.

Sam Hecht and Logan Jones

Both project as strong scheme fits. Either one gives you catastrophic-loss prevention, which is more valuable than a marginal guard upgrade the scheme already compensates for. And unlike drafting a guard who creates a camp battle with Trevor Penning or Cole Strange, a center pick adds genuine depth at the one position you cannot afford to lose.

Reasonable people can disagree on PFF grades versus scheme fit versus developmental upside. So I’ll ask directly: if Hecht or Jones is there in Round 3, and so is a guard who might start immediately, which way are you going? Let me know, StormCloud.