The Chargers Fired Brandon Staley After 63-21 Loss To The Raiders

For weeks it has felt like Brandon Staley was coaching out his last days in Los Angeles, as the Chargers continued to shoot themselves in the foot and found increasingly frustrating ways to lose games. Entering Thursday night’s game in Vegas, the Chargers were 5-8 and without Justin Herbert, who suffered a season-ending finger injury on Sunday.

That put increased pressure on Staley to at least have the team prepared to play without their star quarterback, and by the end of the first half there was little doubt what needed to be done as the Raiders took a 42-0 lead into halftime. At that point, Richard Sherman called for Staley to be fired right then on the Thursday Night Football desk, and while that didn’t happen exactly, less than 24 hours later Staley was officially out of a job, alongside general manager Tom Telesco.

Staley finishes with a 24-24 record with the Chargers, making one playoff appearance that resulted in one of the all-time collapses in NFL history, as they blew a 27-0 first half lead to the Jacksonville Jaguars in the Wild Card round. Despite having an incredibly talented roster, the Chargers have not been able to put it all together for a variety of reasons. Health has played a serious role in their disappointment, but it doesn’t answer for every question facing Staley’s tenure. The defensive-minded coach has never coaxed an even halfway decent defense out of the Chargers in his three seasons there. The decision-making in key spots was once considered his strength as an aggressive, analytics-minded coach, but eventually he seemed to become lost in the sauce, throwing darts blindfolded when it came time to make big decisions on fourth down.

Now, the Chargers will seek out an entirely new regime, firing Telesco as well as the architect of an underachieving roster. There will be speculation about who the next coach will be, and by opening up the GM spot, we’ll certainly hear rumblings of Bill Belichick and other big names who might want to blend the coach and front office roles into one.