In Brandon Staley’s first season as head coach, the Chargers finished with a 9-8 record and came up just short of making the playoffs.
Despite not achieving the ultimate goal of playing beyond the regular season, general manager Tom Telesco felt that it was still a success with Staley at the helm.
“I think he handled things very well this year,” Telesco said. You guys can tell that he has a great connection with our team and our players. And he has definitely brought an identity to this football team. So I think the future is bright with where we are, but we still have a lot of work to do.”
There’s one thing we learned about Staley in his first season as the man in charge: he is an aggressive decision-maker.
Not afraid to go for it on fourth down, Staley favored the analytics and quarterback Justin Herbert to get the job done in those situations. Of the 34 the Chargers attempted, 22 of them were successful.
While some of his decisions paid off, like in wins over the Chiefs (Week 3), Raiders (Week 4), Browns (Week 5), Eagles (Week 9), and Bengals (Week 13), some of them resulted in failures, like against Kansas City in Week 15 and Las Vegas in the season finale.
“I love the identity we play with,” Telesco said when asked about Staley’s aggression on fourth down. “I support him 100%. I’m a big believer in using data to make decisions, as is he… I know on the outside everyone may not agree but it’s who we are and how we are going to play moving forward.”
“All of these decisions, even though they’re made in real-time, there’s research involved in it prior to the game.”