Chargers fire coach Brandon Staley, GM Tom Telesco; Giff Smith is interim coach
The Chargers fired general manager Tom Telesco and head coach Brandon Staley on Friday morning, hours after an ugly loss at Las Vegas dropped their record to 5-9.
Giff Smith was named interim head coach and JoJo Wooden interim general manager for the remainder of the season.
Smith was the team’s outside linebackers coach and has been with the Chargers since 2016. He has spent 12 seasons in the NFL as a defensive line and outside linebackers coach, also having worked for the Buffalo Bills and Tennessee Titans.
The Chargers hired Wooden in 2013 as director of player personnel, overseeing pro and college scouting. One of Telesco’s first hires, Wooden previously had spent 16 years with the New York Jets in their personnel department, having moved up to assistant director of player personnel before joining the Chargers.
In another move, the Chargers fired defensive run game coordinator/defensive line coach Jay Rodgers.
“These decisions are never easy, nor are they something I take lightly — especially when you consider the number of people they impact,” owner Dean Spanos said in a statement. “We are clearly not where we expect to be, however, and we need new vision. Doing nothing in the name of continuity was not a risk I was willing to take.
The Chargers were missing star players and any desire to compete as the Raiders scored a franchise record 63 points after going scoreless last week.
“Our fans have stood strong through so many ups and downs and close games. They deserve more. Frankly, they’ve earned more. Building and maintaining a championship-caliber program remains our ultimate goal. And reimagining how we achieve that goal begins today.”
Telesco was hired in January 2013 at the age of 40, becoming the youngest general manager in franchise history.
His teams finished 84-92 in the regular season and made three playoff appearances, winning a pair of postseason games. Telesco’s Chargers never won an AFC West title and reached double figures in victories only twice.
The 2013 and 2018 Chargers both won wild-card games before losing in the divisional round.
The 2022 team rallied late to secure the AFC’s top wild-card spot but lost to Jacksonville in January after blowing a 27-0 lead.
Coming off that disappointment, the Chargers were expected to contend for another playoff berth when they returned with their roster mostly intact.
But then they opened the year with consecutive losses to Miami and Tennessee before beating Minnesota and Las Vegas.
Eventually sitting at 4-4, the Chargers have lost five of six to fall out of contention and into 15th place in the conference.
Telesco had some notable success in the draft, his picks including first-rounders Justin Herbert, Derwin James Jr. and Joey Bosa. He also took Keenan Allen in the third round of his first draft.
Under Telesco, the Chargers found Austin Ekeler, an undrafted running back who led the NFL in touchdowns in 2021 and 2022.
But Telesco and his staff struggled to build the type of depth needed to withstand the injuries the Chargers have suffered over the last decade. He also had a difficult time constructing dependable offensive lines.
Telesco’s tenure also included a mostly conservative approach in free agency, which kept the team in solid salary-cap position until this last offseason.
He did splurge on cornerback J.C. Jackson, a player Staley coveted, in March 2022, signing the Pro Bowl pick to a deal with $40 million guaranteed.
Keenan Allen, Joey Bosa and Justin Herbert are Tom Telesco’s home runs when examining the general manager’s 10 NFL drafts with the Chargers.
But that decision turned out to be a disaster as Jackson’s time with the Chargers was marked by injuries and poor play. Telesco traded Jackson to New England in early October.
Staley’s teams finished 24-24 in the regular season and made one playoff appearance. In his first year in 2021, the Chargers were eliminated from postseason contention on the final snap of the regular season.
The defeat at Las Vegas on Thursday was a record-setter, the Chargers surrendering an all-time high in points for a game. Also, no Chargers team ever had trailed by 42 points at halftime.
Staley, a former college quarterback who emerged quickly in the NFL as a defensive coach, struggled particularly this season in establishing a defensive identity.
The Chargers were the NFL’s worst pass defense for much of the season and were unable to limit the damage Thursday when the offense’s problems repeatedly gave the Raiders a short field.
Hired in January 2021, Staley proved to be a polarizing figure in his first season with his aggressive fourth-down decisions.
His second season featured a series of significant injuries to some of the team’s most important players.
The Chargers still rallied to win four in a row starting in mid-December to clinch a playoff berth and quiet talk about Staley’s job status.
But the issue surfaced again following the Chargers’ 2022 regular-season finale, a game that had no impact on the AFC standings.
Despite the contest meaning little, Staley played most of his starters through at least the third quarter with poor results.
The Chargers continued to falter and now have lost starting quarterback Justin Herbert to injury, proving this franchise needs to clean house.
As the Chargers lost 31-28 to the lowly Denver Broncos, wide receiver Mike Williams and linebacker Kenneth Murray Jr. both suffered injuries.
Staley compounded the situation by suggesting Williams could have returned to the game even though Williams was seen needing assistance walking out of the locker room afterward.
Williams then was unavailable as the Chargers lost in the wild-card playoff round to Jacksonville 31-30, a defeat during which they blew a 27-0 second-quarter lead.
Starting with the Denver loss in Week 18 of last season, Staley’s tenure with the Chargers quickly crashed as his teams won only five of their next 16 games.
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