Raise your hand if you scratched your head when the Chargers announced they were hiring Brandon Staley as the franchise 17th head coach to replace Anthony Lynn.
Many diehard Charger fans sought a home run hire with name brand recognition and the person floated most was former national champion collegiate pilot Urban Myer who eventually was hired by the Jacksonville Jaguars.
During a recent visit to the Chargers Costa Mesa training camp at Jack Hammett Sports Complex I got my first glimpse of the team’s new leader as the 38-year old fresh faced defensive guru conducted an NFL team for the first time as head coach.
Hailing from Perry, Ohio he immediately impressed me with his hands on approach and the infant stages indicate that the players will run through a wall for him.
Star defensive Joey Bosa says that Staley allows for individuals to be themselves, but didn’t think he could learn as much in year six.
“I am enjoying the challenge. It’s added another level to my game I think which is a fun challenge going into year six teaching an old dog new tricks which I didn’t think it was possible, but I guess it is. There’s a lot going on. There’s a lot of moving pieces and I think it’s great. Seeing the field, seeing shifts. It’s a dynamic defense and a good defense shouldn’t be easy, you’re not going to learn it in two days,” said Bosa.
Bosa anchors a defense which blew leads of 16 points in four consecutive games, earning the dubious distinction of becoming the first NFL team to accomplish that feat.
That is primarily why the Chargers snatched Staley from the Rams where he served as their defensive coordinator and in his lone campaign was responsible for a unit ranked No. 1 in total defense, passing defense and scoring defense while finishing as the third-best rushing defense.
He inherits a team that is not that far off from competing for a Super Bowl, having last made the post season in 2018 and gushing with one of the best young quarterbacks in the league in Justin Herbert.
Staley is considered one of the most progressive minds in the game today and if he can come close to achieving what his predecessors from Ohio have done then he will be gracing the sidelines for the Bolts for years to come.
They say if you want great salmon the network of freshwater streams and coastal waters of the Pacific Northwest is where you want to go. It’s where country’s most bounteous natural resources, supplying many hundreds of millions pounds a year of salmon, where some of the most nutritious wild protein in the world reside.
If you want a great football coach then you go to the Buckeye state of Ohio that has produced the likes of legends such as Paul Brown, Woody Hayes, Don Shula, Chuck Noll, Bob Stoops, John Harbaugh and Jon Gruden.
Two days into training camp Staley felt the team either met or were beyond the expectations he was anticipating.
Inglewood Today asked Coach Staley his goals for training camp.
“One is an evaluation of the players who’s going to be on the roster, filling that third receive spot and all of those questions, but exactly what these guys do well and maybe what some of their weaknesses are. Our jobs as coaches are to put guys in the right position to utilize their strengths and minimize things that are not a strength. Learning each individual player is really the most important part and obviously then getting the offense to execute when the season hits. As a coach you’re really trying to figure out the personality of each one of these guys, so that when we are putting things together we are putting guys in situations to give them the best chance to succeed.”
And that is why there is no question that Brandon Staley will succeed.
Inglewood Today coverage of local news in Los Angeles County is supported by the Ethnic Media Sustainability Initiative, a program created by California Black Media and Ethnic Media Services to support minority-owned-and-operated community newspapers across California.
