The Chargers and coach Jim Harbaugh have found their replacement for Jesse Minter.
The team has announced that Western Michigan defensive coordinator Chris O’Leary will become the new defensive coordinator.
O’Leary had served as the Chargers’ safeties coach in 2024. He spent six seasons before that at Notre Dame.
Before that, O’Leary was a graduate assistant at Georgia State for in 2015 and 2016. He was hired to be the safeties coach at Florida Tech in 2017.
The return to the NFL in the position of defensive coordinator counts as O’Leary’s biggest break yet. And it puts him him position, like Minter, to eventually become a head coach at the pro or college level.
The Chargers hired Mike McDaniel as their new offensive coordinator and they’re adding a coach from his Miami staff to Jim Harbaugh’s staff as well.
Cameron Wolfe of NFL Media reports that Butch Barry will join the Chargers as their offensive line coach. Mike Devlin had that job in 2025, but was let go along with offensive coordinator Greg Roman this month.
Barry spent the last three seasons in the same job for the Dolphins. The Dolphins led the league in yards and finished second in points scored in Barry’s first season, but the Dolphins slipped to the back-half of the rankings while missing the playoffs the last two seasons.
Barry worked for the Broncos, 49ers, Packers and Buccaneers before joining McDaniel in Miami.
Jim Leonhard was already a popular defensive coordinator candidate and now another team would like to speak with him.
Per Ian Rapoport of NFL Media, the Chargers have put in a request to interview Leonard for their defensive coordinator vacancy.
Lenohard, 43, has been with the Broncos since 2024. He was the club’s defensive backs coach and pass game coordinator in his first year before being promoted to assistant head coach/defensive pass game coordinator for 2025.
The Bills have strong interest in bringing in Leonhard as their defensive coordinator under new head coach Joe Brady. The Jets also have interviewed Leonhard for their vacancy.
Mike McDaniel held his first press conference since being hired as the Chargers’ offensive coordinator on Tuesday and quarterback Justin Herbert was a major topic of conversation.
McDaniel was effusive in his praise of Herbert’s talents and said the “short answer” is that he hasn’t worked with a quarterback who has the same capabilities as his current one. He’s not the first to wax on Herbert’s skills, but the Chargers have not been able to translate that into playoff success to this point in Herbert’s career. McDaniel said one of the things he hopes to do is create an offense that’s less reliant on Herbert’s individual talents.
“I think not relying too heavily on Justin’s ability to do above and beyond I think is critical to maximize those types of opportunities,” McDaniel said. “That’ll be one of the first things that we’ll try to do is take a little off his plate so that he is free to do that when his greatness is required.”
McDaniel did not share all the ways he plans to do that, but he did emphasize that offenses need to “take advantage of that space” provided by defenses before snaps in order to both protect the quarterback and build momentum as a unit.
“There’s a lot of incredible plays that Justin has made,” McDaniel said. “He’s firmly capable, and sometimes as a coach you can rely upon that a little too much. There’s schematic ways to get completions that maybe all three quarterbacks on your roster would be capable of doing. Easier completions, not putting so much — It can be taxing over time for a player to necessitate an incredible play too often to be able to score points and win football games. So you try to take it off of him by creating some low-cost, high-reward offense that he’s firmly capable of doing but maybe a player of lesser talent would be capable of doing as well.”
McDaniel said that Herbert has not “neared the ceiling” of what he can do in the NFL and the Chargers are banking on their new coordinator helping him get closer to that level in 2026.
The Chargers have interviewed a third member of their coaching staff for their defensive coordinator vacancy.
The team announced that they completed an interview with defensive backs coach Steve Clinkscale. Outside linebackers coach Dylan Roney and safeties coach Adam Fuller have also interviewed for the vacancy created by Jesse Minter’s departure to become the Ravens’ head coach.
Clinkscale has been with the Chargers since Jim Harbaugh was hired in 2024 and he spent the previous three seasons on Harbaugh’s Michigan staff. He coached at several other colleges before being hired at Michigan.
Rams assistant head coach/defensive passing game coordinator Aubrey Pleasant and former Ravens defensive coordinator Zach Orr have also interviewed for the position.
