As Mike McDaniel is on to new beginnings with the Los Angeles Chargers, he’s about to go on a trip down memory lane.
McDaniel stood at the podium on Monday and said this week’s scrimmage and game with the 49ers will be a “Career segment” for him.
“You talk about Kyle [Shanhan], for years was the only guy who would hire me and give me a job in the NFL,” McDaniel said. “Obviously I’m very indebted to him and the whole organization, and there’s a lot of guys over there, more coaches now.”
McDaniel and Shanahan have a long history of coaching together, as they first started coaching alongside one another in 2011, when Shanahan was the Washington Redskins’ offensive coordinator from 2010-2013.
Shanahan and McDaniel would follow each other to two more destinations, until Shanahan reached his current position as the head coach for the 49ers in 2017.
McDaniel was hired as an offensive assistant by Shanahan, and the now-Chargers offensive coordinator worked his way up the coaching tree and became San Francisco’s offensive coordinator in 2021, a year after they reached the Super Bowl.
During McDaniel’s lone season calling plays for the 49ers, the team finished 7th in offense, averaging 375.7 yards per game and averaging 25.1 points per game, earning McDaniel the job as head coach of the Miami Dolphins the following year.
Now, McDaniel is with the Chargers after he was fired from Miami during the offseason and will get to coach against his former mentor this week.
“It’ll be an exciting added bonus to what is already an exciting day-to-day over here at The Bolt, for me,” McDaniel said. “It’ll be a nice little asterisk of excitement to have those familiar coaches on the field, competing against a really good team.”
