If Brandon Staley wasn’t a name you were familiar with before he was named the head coach of the Los Angeles Chargers, you probably don’t spend a lot of time on the Internet. It’s rare for young defensive coordinators to make a name for themselves in the age of the Offensive Genius™ but Staley, in his first season as a pro play-caller, managed to become one of the central characters of the 2020 NFL season … for football nerds, at least.
There was a hefty amount of ink spilled on the young coordinator leading a Rams defense that finished first in just about every advanced metric out there. We wrote about Staley more than a few times last season. The Athletic’s Robert Mays talked to Staley and penned a piece on his overall defensive philosophy. And Pro Football Focus’ Seth Galina and Diante Lee each had in-depth breakdowns on his scheme. Again, there was no shortage of content focused on a guy who was coaching D-3 ball just a few years earlier.
I’d argue that we haven’t seen a defensive scheme get this much press since Pete Carroll’s Cover 3-based scheme was terrorizing the league early last decade. But that defense was lauded for its tactical simplicity and, mostly, for the players who made it famous. Staley’s defense, on the other hand, has been lauded more for its variety of fronts and coverages despite the fact that, like Seattle, there was no shortage of superstar talent on the roster.
There has been so much written on the scheme over the past eight months and yet there’s still plenty of ground to cover.
For the most part, the spotlight has been fixed on Staley’s early-down approach, which makes sense: That’s where the most interesting (or hotly debated, at least) philosophical questions are asked and answered. On third down, run-pass splits don’t matter. And numbers in the box and coverage shells are mostly serving a cosmetic purpose. But even if Staley’s third-down stuff doesn’t provide us with answers to the big-picture questions we have about the sport, it probably deserves more attention given 1) how good the Rams were on the all-important down and 2) what it can tell us about the 38-year-old’s future as an NFL head coach.
My guess is that as NFL defenses continue to evolve, they’ll all look similar to the one we saw the Rams run on early downs in 2020. It’s a copycat league and, based on what we’re seeing at the lower levels of the sport, it’s just the direction defenses are going in.
So if Staley is going to stand out and continue to cultivate this reputation as one of the league’s brightest young minds, it will be his passing-down calls that make it happen.