As the old saying goes, defense wins championships.
When the Chargers hired Brandon Staley to serve as the new head coach, his defensive expertise was one of the few reasons why the team was bought in with him leading the charge.
In 2020, the Rams defense ranked No. 1 in the NFL in both yards and points allowed with Staley overseeing the unit as their defensive coordinator.
Now with the 38-year old Staley bringing his master plan over to the Bolts, players are excited for what’s in store, including veteran Chris Harris Jr., who believes his extensive playbook will take the defensive group over the top.
“It’s going to be tough,” Harris said. “Our dime and nickel package should be the best in the league when you’ve got me, Derwin, and K Murray, or [Drue] Tranquill inside — or Kyzir White because he’s a guy who can cover, too. So we have a lot of packages that coach Staley is going to use and it’s going to be hard for teams to identify us.”
While Staley’s base defense is a 3-4 scheme, they will hardly be in it. Instead, their alignments will constantly be revolving, as Staley looks to keep offenses guessing and limit big plays by getting 1-on-1s in the run game and 2-on-1s in the passing game.
Most importantly, the Chargers have plenty of talent at all three levels to get the best of Staley’s packages. A major contributor: The do-it-all defender Derwin James, who is fully healthy after missing all of last season due to a knee injury.
“To bring back Derwin, it’s going to be an issue because now you have me and him that are positionless players, that you never know where we’re going to line up,” Harris said. “I can line up in his position. He can line up in my position. So you never know what we’re going to do.”
Aside from James and Harris Jr., other play-makers include Joey Bosa, Kenneth Murray, Drue Tranquill, Michael Davis, Linval Joseph and rookie Asante Samuel Jr.
Staley has a knack for getting the most out of his players, which means that Uchenna Nwosu, Jerry Tillery, Nasir Adderley, among others are going to be in a great position to breakout.
Staying healthy will be pivotal but this defense has a good chance of sitting atop of the ranks by the end of the season.