Tag: Joe Lombardi fired

Twitter reacts to Chargers firing offensive coordinator Joe Lombardi

Here’s how the internet reacted to the Chargers firing Joe Lombardi.

The Chargers made a notable coaching change, firing offensive coordinator Joe Lombardi on Tuesday. Additionally, passing game coordinator/quarterbacks coach Shane Day was relieved of his duties.

The move was expected, as Los Angeles did not get the most out of quarterback Justin Herbert’s special abilities, given Lombardi’s offensive system predicated on quick and underneath throws.

The Chargers were also lackluster in the run game, red zone and on third down.

Now, head coach Brandon Staley will be looking for a new offensive coordinator as he heads into Year 3 of his regime.

Let’s see how Twitter reacted to the Lombardi news.

Instant analysis of Chargers firing offensive coordinator Joe Lombardi

Here’s what led to the firing of Chargers OC Joe Lombardi.

Joe Lombardi is out after two seasons in Los Angeles, leaving Brandon Staley and Tom Telesco to search for a new offensive coordinator in what will likely be a make-or-break season for both head coach and general manager.

Lombardi’s firing is no surprise, and that it was paired with the firing of pass game coordinator/QB coach Shane Day should also not be a shock. The Chargers’ offense took a step back in nearly every meaningful way this season, falling from 4th in DVOA in 2021 to 19th in 2022.

So what went wrong?

For starters, injuries. To get out in front of this: no, that’s not an excuse for Lombardi. The way he handled injuries to key players, however, informed his ability (or lack thereof) to adapt the offense on the fly. When Keenan Allen was injured in Week 1, Lombardi had no way to scheme other receivers open. DeAndre Carter, Josh Palmer, and Michael Bandy ran Allen’s routes like nothing had happened, except those less talented players failed to get open at the same rate Allen did. After Corey Linsley left the game in Week 2, Lombardi continued to run traditional drop-back passing concepts. At the same time, Kansas City’s defensive line took advantage of miscommunications on the offensive line, eventually leading to Justin Herbert’s rib injury. Mike Williams’ injury resulted in Palmer plugging directly in for him. Injuries along the offensive line, namely to right tackle Trey Pipkins, decimated the Chargers’ control of the pocket while Lombardi refused to get Herbert on the move.

That refusal links back to another issue with Lombardi’s offense: it seemed like he never truly figured out what he had in Herbert. The running joke online was that Lombardi was running the late-stage Drew Brees offense with the Chargers’ signal-caller. Brees, in his later years, had a weak arm but a sharp processor, so running a series of quick routes for him to snap through was an effective game plan. Herbert has similar processing ability but also is able to make throws that few other people on Earth are capable of. Downfield throws, no matter how often they worked for the Chargers, were limited to one or two chances a game. Again, getting Herbert on the move was frequently not a consideration, despite it working to perfection nearly every time they called the plays. It often felt like Lombardi had a script after the script; that no matter what his opening script told him about the defense, he was sticking to his pregame notions of how to win the game.

This stickiness, if you want to call it that, was a large part of why the Chargers could not get any offense going in the third quarter this season. (The Stick-iness of the offense was also a problem.) Lombardi would script out the first few drives, LA would get a lead, and then he’d decide his job was done, and they just needed to sit on the ball until the game ended. Defenses would adjust at halftime, Lombardi would not, and the offense would stall. Herbert would either make magic happen to pull the game out, or the Chargers would lose.

Red zone playcalling also proved to be problematic for Lombardi, who consistently could not design run plays to get the ball into the end zone and ran pass plays that were designed short of the goal line. This was despite having the basketball team of Gerald Everett, Donald Parham Jr., and Mike Williams available at his disposal. Granted, all three of those players missed time at one point or another, but even when all three were on the field, Lombardi preferred to run bubble screens to a hamstrung Keenan Allen than draw something up for one of his taller receivers.

All in all, Lombardi’s tenure with the Chargers is emblematic of his refusal or inability to adjust to his circumstances. Press conferences midseason included many quotes from the offensive coordinator about how they didn’t have the speed to attack downfield, despite deep crossing routes to Mike Williams working when Herbert rolled out. Lombardi doesn’t have the final say on the roster construction, and I get that, but part of the job is to turn what you’re given into something functional. Coaches like Brian Daboll in New York are running better offenses, with Daniel Jones throwing the ball to Richie James and Isaiah Hodgins. Lombardi got head coaching interviews recently as a year ago for what he did when everything was perfect: no injuries, only the base version of the offense installed, lower stakes. How he fared when things got messy is why LA let him go on Tuesday.

5 Chargers offensive coordinator candidates to replace Joe Lombardi

The Chargers will begin looking for a new offensive coordinator. Here are some potential replacements.

The Chargers will now look for a new offensive play-caller after the firing of Joe Lombardi on Tuesday morning.

With that, here is a look at a few candidates that could take over as the team’s offensive coordinator.

Chargers fire offensive coordinator Joe Lombardi

The Chargers’ offensive system will undergo reconstruction.

On Tuesday, the team announced that offensive coordinator Joe Lombardi would not return for the 2023 season. Pass game coordinator/QB coach Shane Day was also fired.

It ends a tumultuous tenure for the 51-year-old Lombardi, who joined the Chargers as Staley’s offensive coordinator prior to the 2021 season. After piloting LA to a top 5 offense by DVOA, the talk was much more about how high the ceiling could go rather than how hot Lombardi’s seat was.

2022 was, unfortunately, not the sequel Chargers fans were hoping for. After offseason talk about how much more of the offense LA could install, the Chargers plummeted to 19th in offensive DVOA. Injuries certainly played a part: Keenan Allen, Mike Williams, Rashawn Slater, Corey Linsley, and Trey Pipkins all missed multiple games and Justin Herbert, Gerald Everett, and Josh Palmer spent stretches banged up. But Lombardi showed an inability to adjust when those injuries occurred, which resulted in a midseason stretch of Herbert trying to force throws to DeAndre Carter and Michael Bandy running Allen’s routes without much success. Offensive sequencing consistently felt off, the offense fell flat after the opening script concluded, and Lombardi insisted on running the same concepts even after they were proven to be ineffective. Perhaps the cardinal example of this was the refusal to get Justin Herbert on the move, despite generating highlight play after highlight play when they did and facing immense pressure when they didn’t because of the banged-up offensive line.

All this coalesced into a season-long discourse about Lombardi and his viability as offensive coordinator going forward. With Staley’s job also subject to a number of rumors, sacrificing Lombardi to buy himself one more year always seemed like the likeliest outcome.

The Chargers will now embark on a search for a new coordinator, preferably one who can extract the best out of the ascending Herbert. 

Are changes coming to Chargers’ coaching staff?

Brandon Staley is not winning enough with such a talented team.

Chargers fans are still numb nearly 24 hours later. They’re numb after watching their favorite team collapse, nothing new. However, the feeling after witnessing this did not compare to the others.

Their eyes were on the television screen as Jaguars kicker Riley Patterson’s 36-yard field goal went through the uprights as time expired, left stunned but still not even surprised.

It had been reminiscent of watching Raiders kicker Daniel Carlson ending Los Angeles’ 2021 season with a playoff berth on the line after making a buzzer-beating 47-yard field goal in overtime in Week 18, which happened to be just days removed from a year ago when it happened.

It seemed like Los Angeles was on their way to punching their ticket to the AFC Divisional Round, as they held a 27-0 lead in the second quarter over the Jaguars.

Instead, they fell victim to the largest blown lead in franchise history, the third-largest comeback in NFL postseason history, and the first time a team lost a playoff game with a plus-five turnover differential, losing 31-30 on Saturday night at TIAA Bank Stadium.

The Chargers’ collapse occurred not in all three phases but in four.

Offensively, they had just seven rushing yards on seven designed carries over the final two quarters. Justin Herbert missed some throws, including to a wide-open Keenan Allen in the end zone in the second quarter that would’ve brought the lead to 31 points.

Defensively, after picking off Trevor Lawrence four times in the first half by fooling him with disguised coverages and blitzes, Doug Pederson made the proper adjustments. Brandon Staley, the defensive-minded coach, did not.

As a result, Staley could only watch along the sideline as Lawrence engineered four consecutive touchdown-ending drives and the final one that ended in the game-winning field goal.

The defense committed a couple of costly penalties in the second half. Ja’Sir Taylor, who played in place of the injured Michael Davis, had a pass interference penalty on a 2nd-and-19 in the fourth quarter that gave the Jaguars a new set of downs.

Additionally, an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty from Joey Bosa when he slammed his helmet to the ground after officials didn’t call what he thought was a false start helped the Jaguars score on a two-point conversion.

On special teams, Cameron Dicker, who had been a bright spot, missed a 40-yard field goal in the third quarter, which would have brought them to 33 points, enough to have squeaked out a win.

Along with the product on the field, the Chargers’ loss falls on the shoulders of Staley. Staley played his starters for most of a meaningless Week 18 game against the Broncos that had no weight on playoff seeding, and Mike Williams suffered a back injury and was forced to miss the wild card round.

Los Angeles then had to play with four active receivers. Three after DeAndre Carter, who ended up getting hurt mid-game and was replaced by Michael Bandy. Williams could’ve been the difference-maker for an offensive unit unable to sustain drives or score touchdowns to extend their lead.

After going 9-8 in his first season, Staley had the vision to build a Super Bowl-caliber roster, bringing in Khalil Mack, J.C. Jackson, Sebastian Joseph-Day, Austin Johnson, Morgan Fox and Kyle Van Noy to a team that had six returning Pro Bowlers.

Of course, the team was hindered by injuries. Jackson suffered a season-end knee injury, Rashawn Slater went down in Week 3 to a biceps injury, Bosa missed most of the season because of a groin injury, and Keenan Allen and Mike Williams were both in and out due to their respective injuries.

L.A. finished 10-7 with a trip to the playoffs for the first time since 2018. But one thing remained the same in Staley’s first two seasons as head coach: they ended the same way, with his defense failing him and a football splitting through the uprights to send the Chargers home.

As talented as Los Angeles, with an elite quarterback and a defense they invested a lot of money and draft picks, Staley is not winning enough, and it is difficult to see him turning things around.

That is why change could be coming.

Staley may get the boot, and there’s been speculation that Sean Payton would be interested in the Chargers’ head coaching job. Payton is still under contract with the Saints. So the question would come down to whether or not Dean Spanos would be willing to give up draft capital and a large chunk of change.

However, Staley is well-liked by the leadership for the culture he’s built in a short period and how he carries himself, which is why he could be kept around. But the only way Staley could save himself is by firing Joe Lombardi as a scapegoat.

The offense has been an ongoing issue, with Lombardi overseeing it. Herbert was made to do extraordinary things with his arm, yet he finished at the bottom of the NFL in depth of target per throw because Lombardi’s system is predicated on quick and underneath throws.

The bottom line is that it’s been many years that Chargers fans have listened to media pundits peg the Bolts to the Super Bowl in their preseason predictions, only to be left in a constant cycle of a letdown. These fans deserve better.