Tag: Chargers coaching staff

Chargers HC Jim Harbaugh brings in two more coaches from Michigan

Chargers head coach Jim Harbaugh continues to build out his staff.

Chargers head coach Jim Harbaugh continues to build out his staff.

After hiring strength and conditioning coach Ben Herbert and defensive coordinator Jesse Minter, Harbaugh is bringing two more coaches with him from Michigan, as Mike Elston and Dylan Roney are coming to Los Angeles.

NFL Media’s Tom Pelissero reported about Elston and MLive’s Aaron McMann reported about Roney leaving.

Elston served as the Wolverines’ recruiting coordinator and defensive line coach for the past two seasons, producing two All-Big Ten selections and draft selections last year in Mazi Smith and Mike Morris.

He’s had coaching stops at Eastern Michigan, Central Michigan, Cincinnati and Notre Dame. Elston spent 11 years with the Fighting Irish as their defensive line coach.

Roney was a graduate assistant who helped Elston over the past two seasons, working with Michigan’s edge defenders.

Report: Chargers to hire Marcus Brady as pass game coordinator

Jim Harbaugh’s coaching staff is taking shape.

Jim Harbaugh’s coaching staff is taking shape.

The Chargers are hiring Marcus Brady as their pass game coordinator, according to ESPN’s Jeremy Fowler.

Fowler added that Brady interviewed for the offensive coordinator job that presumably goes to Greg Roman, who is also expected to join the staff.

Brady was recently the Eagles’ senior offensive assistant.

Before joining Philadelphia, Brady was with the Colts for five seasons, starting as their assistant quarterbacks coach in 2018.

That year, he helped Andrew Luck finish with one of the best seasons of his career, in which he threw for 4,593 yards and 39 touchdowns en route to winning the NFL’s Comeback Player of the Year Award.

Brady was promoted to quarterbacks coach the following season. In 2020, Philip Rivers finished the season in the top ten of completion percentage (68%) and passing yards (4,169).

He became the Colts’ offensive coordinator in 2021. That year, Indianapolis finished second in the NFL in rushing yards per game (149.4) and yards per carry (5.1) and tied for the fifth-most rushing touchdowns (22).

Before joining the NFL ranks, Brady was an offensive coordinator in the Canadian Football League (CFL) for eight seasons.

Report: Chargers expected to hire Greg Roman for ‘prominent spot’

Greg Roman’s role remains to be seen.

The Chargers are looking to bring back one of Jim Harbaugh’s closest football confidants, with former Ravens and 49ers offensive coordinator Greg Roman heading to Los Angeles, according to NFL Media’s Ian Rapoport.

Roman last coached for the Ravens in 2022 but resigned in 2023 with differences in offensive philosophy causing strife. Dating back to Stanford, Roman has been one of Harbaugh’s top figures on staff. He was the Associate Head Coach at Stanford and offensive coordinator of Harbaugh’s Niners for four seasons.

The unknown in this situation is what his exact role will be. Early reporting from Aaron Wilson and other insiders projected Roman as a favorite for offensive coordinator. But, recent reporting from Pelissero and Rapoport has not connected him to that role for the Chargers. It is worth noting that Roman has coached tight ends and offensive line from a positional standpoint before. Run game coordinator could be an interesting role for one of the league’s brightest minds.

Associate or assistant head coach is another type of title that Roman could have. Whichever way you slice it, the odds of him taking the OC position specifically seem pretty low compared to before. That would open the door for a candidate like Tanner Engstrand to take the offensive coordinator job. He does have Harbaugh connections from the San Diego days, which seems noteworthy as Engstrand interviews around the league.

Jim Harbaugh’s first Chargers coaching staff taking shape

While the team hasn’t officially announced any hirings, we know some of the coaches Jim Harbaugh will have on his staff.

At his introductory press conference, Chargers head coach Jim Harbaugh said the No. 1 priority is building the coaching staff.

While the team hasn’t officially announced any hirings, we know some of the coaches Harbaugh will have on his staff.

According to KPRC 2 Houston’s Aaron Wilson, Mike Devlin is expected to coach the offensive line. Jesse Minter will be the defensive coordinator. Jay Harbaugh will coach the safeties. Ryan Ficken is expected to be retained as special teams coordinator. Greg Roman will be brought in, but his role remains to be seen.

Devlin, a 21-year NFL coaching veteran, finished his second season as the Ravens’ assistant offensive line coach.

Minter was on Harbaugh’s staff at Michigan as defensive coordinator, where he led college football’s top-ranked unit in 2023.

Harbaugh was an assistant coach for the Wolverines and worked with the running backs and safeties.

Roman was previously Baltimore’s offensive coordinator from 2019-2022. He is very familiar with Harbaugh, having been his OC with the 49ers from 2011-2014 and an associate head coach on Harbaugh’s staff at Stanford in 2009 and 2010.

Brandon Staley and Tom Telesco’s firings were long overdue, if not too late

Brandon Staley and Tom Telesco should’ve been let go of a lot earlier.

The Chargers cleaned house on Friday after parting ways with GM Tom Telesco as well as HC Brandon Staley. This comes on the heels of an embarrassing 42-point loss to the Raiders on Thursday Night Football.

JoJo Wooden and Giff Smith were promoted to interim GM and HC respectively. Wooden has been the Director of Player Personnel since 2013. Giff Smith has served various roles from 2016-2023, including defensive line and outside linebackers coaching stints.

Before moving on to coaching and GM candidates for replacement content, it’s time to truly look back on the Telesco-Staley era as it comes to an end. After having plenty of cap space in 2021, a stud quarterback on a rookie deal, and plenty of big names on the roster, the Chargers sit here today with nothing to show for it. The Telesco-Staley era was defined by “all in” promises with more flash than substance.

Let’s start with Telesco. With a relatively slim playoff resume and mediocre regular season success in his 11 years, it was past time for him to go. Dean Spanos and Chargers’ ownership could not willingly let him hire a fourth head coach. His last shot was Staley.

Frankly, he got the opportunity to hire a third coach because of the selection of Justin Herbert in 2020. Had that not happened for this organization, I think it’s safe to say that he would’ve been gone sooner. But the Chargers wanted to keep some sort of structure at the top to bring along their rookie QB. At the time, there was a core of the fanbase and media that believed Telesco should’ve been relieved of his duties with Anthony Lynn after 2020.

And it’s clear that is the direction the franchise should’ve gone in. Telesco has struck out on finding requisite depth for the team in the draft. He’s spent all of the teams’ financial resources and their future capital on poor investments. The Chargers are $42 million over the projected cap in 2024. That stems from four max contract restructures for a losing season and J.C. Jackson dead cap money.

The retention of drafted players over the Telesco tenure was generally bad. Consistently, guys like Kyzir White and Drue Tranquill left the team on the cheap after their rookie deals while the Chargers would choose the worse team-building plays instead.

Letting Telesco manage another season would’ve been untenable. To be honest, the short-term damage he’s inflicted on the team in 2024 is enough to deal with. It was well past time to go.

For Staley, he leaves Los Angeles after three years on the job. He finishes 24-24 after 9-8, 10-7, and 5-9 seasons. While Staley showed promise in his first season, his downfall primarily occurred for a plethora of reasons. After promises to build the offense around Justin Herbert and “throw that sh*t downfield”, the Chargers’ head coach never fully figured out the offensive staff/personnel side of the ball. From Joe Lombardi to Kellen Moore, one thing remained consistent on offense: football that was never fundamentally sound.

And when the Chargers did manage to score 30 or 40 points, Staley’s defense managed to give up more. Herbert bailed out the former Chargers’ head coach in a number of games. Staley harped on the lack of complementary football all year and it presented itself in largely every game LA played. Even some of their wins were relatively ugly.

Staley’s defense and special teams combined units ranked bottom 10 in EPA in every season he was the head coach. Simply put, he was hired as a defensive coordinator who never fixed the defense. LA’s unit was plagued with poor tackling fundamentals, bad player development, and convoluted personnel decisions on gamedays. While Staley had good ideas in theory like the style of defense he intended to play, it was the execution of the concepts that were lacking.

Truthfully, there are plenty of more platitudes and moments I could mention on why both Staley and Telesco are finished in LA as we sit here today. But what’s more pressing is the future. While the Chargers will likely still be a hot destination with Herbert viewed as a top franchise cornerstone around the league, the damage has been done. There’s the cap situation. There’s deep player unhappiness rooted in the current situation. There probably will be a decent amount of turnover with not just coaching personnel, but many of the Chargers’ franchise figure players who have been present over the last half decade or longer.

Staley was hired by Telesco to make a run and build off the Herbert window. But whatever GM and coach pairing is hired next will be brought in to clear the wreckage “all in” venture that completely collapsed.

Chargers fire defensive line coach Jay Rodgers

The Chargers weren’t done making changes when they let Brandon Staley and Tom Telesco go.

The Chargers weren’t done making changes when they let Brandon Staley and Tom Telesco go on Friday.

The team announced late Friday morning that defensive run game coordinator and defensive line coach Jay Rodgers had also been relieved of his duties.

Rodgers was hired in 2021 as part of Staley’s inaugural coaching staff, working with the outside linebackers while coordinating the defensive run game. He moved to his more natural position of defensive line to begin the 2022 season.

While highly regarded in league circles, Rodgers struggled to get the defensive line to play up to their billing in three years in Los Angeles. The Chargers ranked 32nd in run defense in 2021 and 2022 but improved to 18th in 2023.

Assistant defensive line coach John Timu will likely take over the position coach duties for the final three weeks of the season.

Chargers make changes to training staff after injury-riddled 2022 season

After a year of injuries, the Chargers decided that changes needed to be made.

One of the main storylines of the Chargers’ 2022 season was the dreaded injury bug.

Star players like Joey Bosa, Keenan Allen, J.C. Jackson and Mike Williams missed significant portions of the season. The aforementioned Jackson, Rashawn Slater, Christian Covington, Otito Ogbonnia, and Jalen Guyton were amongst a group of players that specifically suffered season-ending injuries.

Back in February, the team parted ways with head athletic trainer Damon Mitchell. Mitchell had been with the organization for 24 years and was in the head athletic trainer role for six seasons.

As the team’s mandatory minicamp kicked off on Tuesday, the Chargers made two new hires to their training staff official.

Marco Zucconi’s promotion to Director of Player Health and Performance doesn’t exactly come as a surprise. Zucconi was the AFC recipient of the Tim Davey Award for Assistant Athletic Trainer of the Year during the 2022 season. Sal Lopez will replace Mitchell as head athletic trainer. He served as the Titans’ assistant athletic trainer for the last five seasons.

It will be interesting to see how the Chargers dish and divide responsibilities out with their new training staff. Mitchell’s responsibilities seemed very broad with every aspect of the medical department, including the supervision of every individual player’s health.

With Brandon Staley and Tom Telesco making their first joint head trainer hire, one wonders if the power structure in the training and health division might operate differently than before.

It’s a make-or-break year for the Chargers after they invested heavy financial capital into one more run for the current core before some changes are made. Simply put, they can’t afford to have their stars on the sidelines or IR.

Looking at 2022 Adjusted Games Lost, the Chargers ranked 18th in the league. Technically, they’ve had worse seasons in terms of the total amount of missed games. However, Los Angeles’ problem was about how concentrated injuries were amongst their top players. The Chargers averaged 27th place in the league throughout the 2022 season in Dr. Matt Provencher’s BUS rankings. Prior to getting slightly healthier near the end of the season, they found themselves in the bottom five teams in the banged-up score rankings most weeks.

As Los Angeles prepares to bring back most of 2022’s players that suffered severe or nagging injuries, these two staff shakeups will go a long way in deciding whether the Chargers will have better health outcomes this year.

Report: Chargers hiring Will Harris as assistant secondary coach

Brandon Staley continues to add to his staff.

Brandon Staley continues to add to his staff.

Following the departure of Renaldo Hill, who left for a job with the Dolphins, and the promotion of defensive backs coach Derrick Ansley to defensive coordinator, the Chargers had an opening in the secondary. Tom Donatell was elevated to pass game coordinator/defensive backs coach around the same time as Ansley, but most teams employ both a pass game coordinator as well as a dedicated secondary coach.

As of Friday, the Chargers reportedly have found that secondary coach: Georgia Southern defensive coordinator Will Harris, according to On3’s Matt Zenitz. Zenitz initially reported that Harris would be LA’s defensive backs coach before clarifying that he is expected to become the Chargers’ assistant secondary coach.

At Georgia Southern, Harris’ defense forced 15 red zone stops, second in the country. He also coached CB Derrick Canteen, who was projected to be a mid-round pick before transferring to Virginia Tech. Prior to coordinating the Eagles’ defense, Harris was the defensive backs coach at Washington, where he coached Chiefs CB Trent McDuffie, Bears CB Kyler Gordon, Titans CB Elijah Molden, Cardinals CB Byron Murphy Jr., Patriots CB Myles Bryant, and Rams S Taylor Rapp.

Harris has also coached NFL defensive backs Andre Chachere during his time at San Jose State, so his reputation as a developer of talent precedes him into the NFL. A safety under Pete Carroll at USC from 2005-09, Harris had 113 tackles and six interceptions in his career as a Trojan before going undrafted in 2010.

Chargers’ new DC Derrick Ansley on working with Brandon Staley: ‘He has a brilliant mind’

Derrick Ansley didn’t hold back his excitement when talking about working under Brandon Staley.

After his comments earlier this week, it is safe to say that the Chargers’ new defensive coordinator Derrick Ansley is excited about his new position.

Ansley was asked by a reporter earlier this week about what it will be like for him to collaborate with head coach Brandon Staley to scheme up the Chargers’ defense in 2023, and he responded with unbridled enthusiasm.

“It’s going to be awesome,” Ansley said. “Coach is a brilliant mind defensively. Hopefully I can add some ideas to him and we can put this thing together smoothly and keep it rolling.”

Questioned about the praise heaped on him by Derwin James after his promotion and his philosophy as a leader, Ansley made it clear that forging a strong connection with his players makes a world of difference.

“[In] relationships with the players, it’s about give and take, especially in NFL ball” He explained. “What do you guys like? What style, what technique do you like? And if I can see something that could maybe help them become better, then we introduce that to them. So I think it’s a lot of give and take. Listen to the players, coach them hard, accountability, make sure everybody is pulling the rope in the same direction.”

How Ansley’s defense might fare in 2023 is unknown, though the pieces seem to be in place for him to make something special happen. With veterans all over the field in his unit, Ansley will only need to harness the talent already on Los Angeles’ roster to put together a defense worthy of postseason competition.

Doug Nussmeier officially named Chargers’ quarterbacks coach

Doug Nussmeier brings over 20 years of coaching experience into his new role as the Chargers’ quarterbacks coach.

The Chargers made several changes to their coaching staff on Monday, naming their new defensive coordinator, defensive quality control coach, and linebackers coach among other moves. But the only swap on the offensive side of the ball was Doug Nussmeier being tapped as the team’s next quarterbacks coach.

Nussmeier, a former NFL quarterback, was a fourth-round selection by the New Orleans Saints in the 1994 draft class. However, he found most of his success as a professional football player in Canada, where he was a Grey Cup champion with the BC Lions in 2000.

He has held various roles on coaching staffs in Canada, in the college ranks in the United States, and in the NFL since his playing days ended. Initially a quarterbacks coach for the BC Lions and Ottowa Renegades in the CFL in 2001 and 2002, Nussmeier eventually found his way to Michigan State in the same role in 2003 before landing his first gig as an NFL head coach with the St. Louis Rams in 2006.

Over the years, Nussmeier has held a variety of positions ranging from offensive coordinator to tight ends coach, and with his new position in Los Angeles should be primed to lend his exceptional experience to help bolster the Chargers’ offense in 2023.

Under his direction, quarterback Justin Herbert seems primed to take a step forward next season, and if the cards fall their way, Nussmeier could prove to be a key piece in Los Angeles’ quest to secure their first playoff win since 2018.