The Chargers wasted little time making changes on offense.
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The team announced Tuesday that it has fired offensive coordinator Greg Roman and offensive line coach Mike Devlin, two days after a flat 16-3 playoff loss to the New England Patriots.
That game may have sealed Roman's fate. Quarterback Justin Herbert struggled badly, and head coach Jim Harbaugh was notably noncommittal afterward when asked whether Roman was the right fit calling plays. It was a shift in tone that didn't go unnoticed.
The postseason numbers were hard to ignore. In two playoff games under Roman, the Chargers managed just one touchdown total, and that came late in last season's blowout loss to Houston, long after the outcome was decided.
The irony is that things once looked promising. The Chargers' offense was sharp in a Week One win over Kansas City, the passing game looked fluid, and Herbert was well protected. It never really came together again.
Roman has long been regarded as one of the NFL's premier run-game designers, but his system depends heavily on a physical, cohesive offensive line. That never materialized in Los Angeles. Injuries played a major role, starting with left tackle Rashawn Slater's season-ending patellar tendon injury in training camp. Rookie Joe Alt appeared in just six games before a high ankle injury shut him down.
The instability was constant. The Chargers used 29 different offensive line combinations, the third-most in the league. Free-agent addition Mekhi Becton struggled, ranking near the bottom among guards in both pass-block and run-block win rate. Becton admitted Monday he was never fully comfortable in Roman's scheme.
"It was a lot of different things I'm not used to," he said, declining to elaborate.
Roman's resume is well established. He and Harbaugh go back to Stanford, then San Francisco, where Roman coordinated top-five rushing attacks for three straight seasons. Later, with Baltimore, he helped build one of the most dominant ground games in league history and played a major role in Lamar Jackson winning the 2019 MVP. That stint ended amid familiar criticism about the passing offense.
Those concerns followed him to Los Angeles.
Devlin, who previously worked with Roman in Baltimore, joined the Chargers ahead of the 2024 season and exits alongside him.
