Defense is Killing the Chargers

If you asked Brandon Staley what’s been holding this Chargers team back in their 0-2 start to the season, there’s a long list of answers he could rattle off. He dropped about a half dozen during his Week 2 postgame press conference: not protecting the passer, allowing deep passes, third-down penalties, inability to run the ball, general mistakes in the secondary.

Just don’t, under any circumstances, blame the Jacksonville Jaguars. 

The second a reporter brought up Los Angeles’ 27-point collapse to Jacksonville in the 2022 wild-card round, the whole tone of the press conference shifted. The canned, media-trained answers reflecting optimism for the future that ran for three and a half minutes disappeared. You could hear the speech delivery pick up in pace. Staley even flipped it back on the reporter, calling it a “convenient storyline” for the media. Whatever nerve was struck stayed struck into his next answer, before Staley eventually composed himself again:

“We just lost a game in overtime, Jeff, so how do you think the mood is?” 

The Chargers’ optimism feels like it goes back as far back as the day of that fateful cortisone shot. Tyrod Taylor had his lung punctured by a team doctor treating cracked ribs, rookie Justin Herbert found out he would be starting against the reigning Super Bowl champion Kansas City Chiefs during the coin toss, and he took the Anthony Lynn-led Chargers to the brink in overtime. They lost the game, but the rest was history. 

From then on, the Chargers have been the centerpiece of this toxic carousel of optimism and underperformance. Any Chargers team begins the season with the positives setting the expectation, and the shortcomings deciding the final product. It’s tough to get excited about the 2021 coaching hires when the defensive personnel are so weak. When the marquee names such as Khalil Mack and J.C. Jackson arrive in 2022, now everyone’s hurt and Joe Lombardi can’t stop torpedoing Herbert’s aDOT with Stick calls. 

The 2023 iteration of this is third verse, same as the first. Kellen Moore replaced Lombardi, Los Angeles spent a first-round pick on a vertical threat receiver, and the offense entered the season all-around healthier. Through two weeks, they have absolutely held up their end of the bargain. The Chargers are third in the league in offensive DVOA (21.7%), fifth in EPA/play (0.120), fourth in total yards (775), sixth in yards per play (5.5), and sixth in the league in points per game (29.0). Justin Herbert is throwing a career-high 9.1-yard average depth of target and 5.4% CPOE without turning the ball over once. Austin Ekeler’s lone game saw him gain the third-most yards from scrimmage of his career. 

The Chargers’ offense is far from perfect. Los Angeles went 2-for-14 on third down against Tennessee. That kind of inefficiency certainly makes things harder. But the Chargers offense is not to blame for their 0-2 start. In fact, Los Angeles is 0-2 in spite of their offensive success. 

At this point, that spite is clearing historic barriers. According to The Athletic’s Daniel Popper, Week 1 teams that rushed for 200 yards, held opponents under 100 rushing yards, did not commit a turnover, and won the turnover margin by at least two were 110-0 since 2000. Then the Chargers lost 36-34 to the Miami Dolphins. Per CBS Sports’ Doug Clawson, the Chargers are the 33rd team in the Super Bowl era with at least 50 points and no turnovers through two games. They are the only such team to start 0-2. 

This start falls squarely on the head of the Chargers defense and, more specifically, Brandon Staley. 

The Los Angeles Chargers defense is hands-down the worst in the league through two weeks. Not only is the unit dead last in defensive DVOA (36.4%), the gap between them and 31st place is greater than the gap between 31st and 22nd place. The Chargers have allowed a league-leading 790 yards from scrimmage and 592 passing yards. Los Angeles is allowing a near full yard per play more than the second-worst defense (7.5 to 6.7).

The defense has been gashed in the secondary two weeks straight, specifically on deep passes. Receivers have already generated 138 DYAR and 85.7% DVOA when targeted deep against the Chargers. Opposing offenses have thrown deep against Los Angeles on 17.4% of all pass attempts, third-most in the league. They have allowed completions on 58.3% of attempts, the highest rate of any defense with a deep pass rate of at least 10%. Those passes have gone for a league-leading 280 yards, 70 more than second-place Seattle. This problem goes deeper than 2023. Los Angeles faced the third-highest rate of deep passes in 2022 (14.3%) while allowing the fifth-most yards (1,008) and second-most touchdowns (nine). Opposing wide receivers in 2022 accrued 166 DYAR and 27.3% DVOA when running post, digs, and go routes against the Chargers. 

All this comes from Brandon Staley, a direct disciple of Vic Fangio. Fangio’s defense is built specifically to eliminate deep shots. It’s been widely adopted across the league with varying success. Despite the ubiquity, Staley’s iteration hasn’t been able to stop much of anything through the air. 

In fact, Staley’s defensive efforts have damn near launched career rejuvenations for quarterbacks. Staley shut down Tua Tagovailoa and the Dolphins during their 2022 surge. The defense leveraged press coverage at the line of scrimmage to throw Tagovailoa out of rhythm, resulting in a season-low 35.7% completion percentage and 145 passing yards. But two weeks ago, Tagovailoa threw for 466 yards, four yards shy of a career high. Los Angeles threw four different defensive backs at Tyreek Hill—Jackson, Derwin James, Michael Davis, Ja’Sir Taylor—in both man and zone looks. None of it made a difference. Hill finished with 11 receptions for 215 yards (tied for second-most in his career) and a pair of touchdowns. 

That same opening weekend, Titans quarterback Ryan Tannehill looked like a shell of himself against the New Orleans Saints. He completed less than half his passes, throwing three interceptions in a loss. The next week, Los Angeles comes to Tennessee and Tannehill posts the second-highest completion rate (83.3%) of his 131-game career. 

This was supposed to be the year that Staley had his defensive vision finally come into shape. With two years of defensive veteran acquisitions and 11 defensive draft picks in three years, this was going to be the moment. According to The Athletic, Staley specifically mentioned in late August that he finally was able to “engineer” a defensive personnel “the way that we want it.” The defense had one new starter from last year. Everyone thus far has been healthy enough to play (Joey Bosa played through a hamstring injury in Week 2). Yet the defense is marred with mistakes that have piled up to cost Los Angeles. 

At some point, this isn’t a personnel problem. In Staley’s three seasons with the team, the Chargers have never finished better than 21st in defensive DVOA. There are areas of improvement, sure. Last year’s unit ranked 11th in defensive passing DVOA despite losing J.C. Jackson five games into the season. Overall, though, this is a team that refuses to make in-season or even in-game adjustments on the defensive side of the ball. 

At some point, offenses catch up. Doug Pederson took advantage of it during the wild card game. Los Angeles was up 30-14 and just lost cornerback Michael Davis to an injury. His replacement, sixth-round rookie Ja’Sir Taylor, was a liability in solo coverage. Staley repeatedly ran quarter-quarter-half coverages to get a safety behind Taylor’s responsibility. The backside safety was forced to play down in the zone, leaving a massive hole above the defense. The Jaguars came out in trips, and Lawrence found Zay Jones on a deep crossing route for a 39-yard touchdown. 

The thing is, some of Staley’s underperformances on defense would be forgiven if he was the shrewd decision-maker billed to Chargers fans upon arrival. Staley smashed onto the scene as an analytically minded, aggressive head coach. He burst onto the scene in Week 3 of 2021, converting a fourth-and-9 to fight for a win against the Chiefs in Arrowhead Stadium. For a while, he was at the forefront of a substantial fourth-down renaissance. He did interviews with the Associated Press referencing fourth down models and throwing around phrases like “advantage situation, from a data standpoint” when talking about his decision-making.

The problem is, Staley got scared out of the aggressive model. Right before the Week 6 bye in 2021, Staley’s Chargers went 1-for-4 from fourth down in a 34-6 loss to the Baltimore Ravens. It shifted his mindset going forward. He was still aggressive, but in high-stakes situations, he reverted to “safe” options that went against analytics. A Week 10 matchup against the Minnesota Vikings saw Staley fail to go for it once. The Chargers even kicked a field goal from fourth-and-1 on the 5-yard-line down 10 with 4:36 left to go. They lost the game by a touchdown. 

That image as a data-driven winner-take-all head coach has faded significantly. According to RBSDM, Staley’s Chargers went for it on fourth down when he was supposed to over 55% of the time in 2021, eighth among all teams. In 2022, that fell to below 40%, 16th in the league. The advantage Staley provided on the margins fell to replacement level. 

 2023 has been a bit of a mixed bag. Staley opted for a two-point conversion to go up 11-0 against the Titans. He also punted on fourth-and-7 from Tennessee’s 47 with six minutes to go in the fourth quarter of a four-point game. Tennessee scored a touchdown the next play. Then, instead of running up-tempo offense to try and score a go-ahead touchdown, the Chargers ran a meandering 10-play, 60-yard drive with 2:22 left in the clock. Staley didn’t burn a time out until 21 seconds remained in the game. Herbert took a sack the next play to set up a tying field goal. 

Those confounding game management decisions continue to plague Staley. It’s what got the Chargers into trouble against Jacksonville in the playoffs. After going up 27-0 before halftime, the Chargers actually had a higher passing rate than the Jaguars did. The result: Los Angeles orchestrated three drives totaling 17 plays in just over six minutes. By the time the Chargers changed the game plan and slowed things down, Jacksonville scored 20 points in a quarter’s worth of game time. 

The most frustrating part about Staley’s current situation is that he refuses to learn from mistakes. This isn’t a reference to any personnel decision or schematic blind spots. These are situational game management moves purely in Staley’s hands. 

The downfall of Staley’s 2021 season came in Week 18 against the Las Vegas Raiders. A tie in this game gets both teams into the playoffs; a win knocks the opponent out. With just over a minute left in overtime, Las Vegas was running the clock out to set up for a 58-yard field goal. Staley, who later said he “wanted to get our best 11 personnel run defense in,” called a timeout with 38 seconds left. This let the Raiders run another play, gain 10 yards, and use their timeout to set up the playoff-clinching field goal. 

Fast forward to Week 2 of this season, overtime of the Chargers-Titans game. Derrick Henry picked up two yards near midfield to make it third-and-2. Tennessee subbed out Henry for Tyjae Spears; Henry looked visibly winded when broadcast cameras panned to him. Staley called a timeout to make substitutions, giving Henry enough time to regain his breath. He picked up the first down, and Tennessee kicked the game winner four plays later. 

Staley later said, via The Athletic, that he “wanted to get the right grouping in defensively to give us a chance to knock out that run.” In his own words, Staley said he had “no reconsideration” about the timeout. 

The pattern of consistency among Staley is becoming increasingly worrying. Equipped with his personnel, Staley’s hand-crafted defense is woefully failing at the one thing it’s supposed to defend against. The decision-making that once gave him an edge over the competition is all but dissipated. Moreover, he’s shown a near-stubbornness to refuse change. This is no longer a head coach playing to win. Brandon Staley is playing to not lose. He was burned in a game he missed a lot of fourth downs in high-leverage situations, and it changed how he approached them permanently. His in-game situational awareness has potentially cost him a playoff win and a second playoff berth, and there is nothing to suggest that Staley has taken any useful information away from those losses. 

 The Chargers look solid on offense thus far. Hopefully that can keep this team afloat in an AFC that has underperformed expectations out of the gate. As for the underperforming expectations on the other side of the ball, Staley has an increasingly small window to get this right. Otherwise, he will almost definitely move from the hot seat to the firing line.