Following another tight loss to the Baltimore Ravens on Sunday Night, many are wondering when the inevitable call is due for Los Angeles Chargers Head Coach Brandon Staley. In his third season as the head coach, Staley simply seems to be taking the Chargers in the wrong direction.
An interview with Staley after the game reveals that he may have already written off the season as he attempts to look for a moral victory in the team’s loss to the Ravens.
Los Angeles Chargers QB Failed Progression
One of the biggest issues for this Chargers team has been the inability of young quarterback Justin Herbert to take the next step and become an elite NFL quarterback. After an excellent rookie season leading to Herbert winning the Rookie of the Year award, his stats declined each of the two following years in 2021 and 2022. Herbert’s numbers have improved slightly this year over last season with the addition of Quenton Johnston, but he still has failed to enter the MVP discussion truly.
While Staley is considered more of a defensive coach, his inability to delegate and bring in the personnel to manage the offense is substantial. Chargers offensive coordinator Kellen Moore was a questionable choice after limited experience with the Dallas Cowboys but Staley was simply going with the current fad of hiring inexperienced young offensive coaches and hoping for the best.
Defense of the Los Angeles Chargers Underperforming
While the offense can’t completely be blamed on Brandon Staley, the defense can more reliably be placed on his shoulders. With a defense loaded with superstar talent, the Chargers’ defense ranks 29th in the NFL. The disastrous free agent signing of J.C. Jackson has already fallen apart, leading to the young cornerback being traded back to his original New England team, while the recent injury of Joey Bosa has seriously hurt the team’s ability to rush the passer.
Breaking the trend of Inexperienced Head Coaches
Following the first Super Bowl run of Los Angeles Rams head coach Sean McVey at the age of 33, struggling teams have pushed to look for younger coaches with lower profiles rather than the usual approach of sticking to the coordinator pools. While it worked out for the Rams in 2017, an argument can be made that the Rams’ 2017 Super Bowl run was reliant more on the elite team-building ability of former coach Jeff Fischer and a series of “win-now” trades in the following seasons. The Rams are currently facing the consequences of the short-sighted trades made to make a pair of Super Bowls, and McVay appears to be facing a downward trend.
For example, Brandon Staley was only a defensive Coordinator of a Rams team with future Hall of Famers Aaron Donald and Jalen Ramsey. Before that one season, Staley retained positional coaching jobs for one or two seasons at teams around the league where he failed to make much of an impact. The 2017-2018 Bears failed to finish with a winning record, and the 2019 Denver Broncos finished just below a 0.500 record at 7-9. An argument can be made that Staley was thrown into the deep end too early in his career and may soon be facing the consequences.
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