Offensive coordinator Kellen Moore strongly emphasized the Chargers having a versatile offensive identity. When asked about balancing the run and pass, Moore elaborated:
With Justin [Herbert], you feel really good about throwing it. There are games we may need to throw it 60 times. There may be games where we need to run it 60 times. However, we need to fit in-between that each week, it will take its own path and we’ll be comfortable with that.
Moore’s comments continue to follow a theme of Los Angeles’ offseason. A few months ago, Staley brought up “marrying” the pass and run. In essence, it was meant to establish the creation of an identity for the Bolts to be able to run a smoother offense than last season.
On running the ball to open up the passing game, Moore said:
There’s potential there. Any time people play two-deep safeties — in a very cookie-cutter viewpoint here — you have to be able to run the ball to some degree there. The box is a little bit more in your favor, so you have to be able to find ways to have successful runs in there to give yourself, eventually, the one-on-one opportunities. If you can’t run it versus shell, you’re going to get shell all day. Now, the vertical aspect of it becomes a little bit more challenging when you have two deep safeties.
Head coach Brandon Staley employs some of the very same tactics mentioned by Moore on the opposite side of the ball. As demonstrated in a few games last year, the two-high look worked for Staley’s defense if other teams had trouble running the ball.
Take the game against the Dolphins from last season as an example. Unfortunately for the Chargers offense in 2022, they had some of the same struggles in getting their own run game going against shell looks.
Moore also commented on what the “tempo” of the offense should look like:
“There are a million factors on your side with the way the game is flowing and then with who you’re playing. There will be games where maybe it’s an advantage. There will be games where maybe it’s not an advantage. It’s just one part of the offense. You can play with a lot of different personnel. You can play with a lot of different types of tempo. You just want to have exposure to all of this stuff through training camp so that during the season when we feel it’s necessary or valuable for a game plan, we can pull back on that experience and go.”
Hopefully, the Chargers feel as though they’ve gotten the proper reps in both the huddle and no-huddle offensive looks in training camp.