Chargers News: Brandon Staley Firing Reflects Historic Necessity For Bolts

Remember how he was supposedly a defensive specialist?

Your 5-9 Los Angeles Chargers ripped off the band-aid a bit earlier than some of us at Charger Report (okay, fine, me) might have expected.

Following an ignominious 63-21 massacre at the hands of a (supposedly) equally downtrodden Las Vegas Raiders club on Thursday, LA ownership moved swiftly, firing both head coach Brandon Staley and, in a bit of a stunner, team general manager Tom Telesco.

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Per Adam Schefter of ESPN, the Bolts haven't fired a head coach midway through a season for 25 years. Kevin Gilbride was canned six games into the 1998 season and replaced by June Jones on an interim basis. So canning Staley with three games on the docket is a bit surprising.

Schefter adds that Los Angeles/San Diego has fired six other head coaches prior to Staley, with all the other moves happening at the end of a season.

With the year seemingly lost anyway after Justin Herbert's right index finger fracture required surgery, the Bolts were mostly playing for lottery position. I for one figured owner Dean Spanos would hold off until the offseason to make any major personnel moves, and I thought Telesco was safe despite a fairly uneven drafting/free agent recruiting record. I am happy to have been proven wrong.

Staley, in the midst of his third season at the helm, finishes his LA run (his first head coaching gig, and maybe his last for a while) with a decent 24-24 overall record, yes, but relative to the talent of his roster that's an incredible disappointment. Herbert, Pro Bowl wide receiver Keenan Allen, star running back Austin Ekeler, and Pro Bowl linebacker Khalil Mack represented an appetizing core around which to build. 

The team frequently struggled to close out contests in late-game situations, Staley often made really questionable play calls near scoring position, and for a supposed defensive specialist (he was the defensive coordinator for the Super Bowl LVI champion LA Rams) he led clubs that finished with rankings of 23rd, 20th and 29th in yards allowed across his three seasons, and 29th, 21st and 27th in points allowed. That's not even mentioning LA's historic wild card game collapse last season to the Jacksonville Jaguars. 

It was time for Staley to go. I'm impressed Spanos thought so, too.

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