There’s one thing we learned about Brandon Staley in his first season as a head coach: he is an aggressive decision-maker.
Not afraid to go for it on fourth down, Staley opted for it on 4th-and-1 from the Chargers’ 18 with his team trailing by three points and 9:41 remaining in the third quarter against the Raiders on Sunday.
The result? Austin Ekeler was tackled for a two-yard loss to force a turnover on downs.
Las Vegas only managed to get a field goal out of it, but it left many wondering why Staley decided to go for it rather than punting.
Following the game, Staley explained that he believed the play could help boost the offense.
“I just felt like we, that was going to be a drive starter for us, you know generate some steam for our offense, felt like we would get it, felt like we had a good play call with the duo run and they just knifed in there and made a good play,” Staley said.
Even then, the play call is what drew the questions. As opposed to running the ball, letting Justin Herbert do his thing seemed more logical. However, Staley felt that the offense was in a good position to convert based on the Raiders’ personnel.
“We felt like we could get the run. We felt like the personnel grouping that they had out there, they weren’t in the goal line defense we felt like we had plenty good enough play call for that and they took away the advantage look and it just didn’t go down for us tonight,” Staley said.
Relying on the analytics, Staley’s decision to go for it would have paid off and ultimately increased the Chargers’ chance of winning had they gotten it to 43%. In contrast, a punt would have slightly reduced the team’s chances to 35%, according to Next Gen Stats.
Los Angeles was 6-of-7 on fourth down and that was the only one the team failed to convert on.