It should have been a can’t-miss Hollywood blockbuster.
Take Brandon Staley, coordinator of the NFL’s best defense in points and yards allowed in 2020, and give him a star-studded cast of defenders and some time for everything to come together as head coach of the Los Angeles Chargers.
But his third season started with another defensive dud in a 36-34 loss to the Miami Dolphins on Sunday, raising more questions than answers about whether the Chargers will ever figure things out on that side of the ball under Staley.
With a look toward what it means for the rest of a make-or-break season in Los Angeles, here’s what went wrong and a sense of whether those issues can get resolved in time:
Pass Defense
It was bad. Shockingly bad. The most passing yards allowed in franchise history bad.
Tua Tagovailoa threw for 466 yards, with Tyreek Hill accounting for 215 yards on 11 receptions. They connected on plays of 28, 29, 30, 35 and 47 yards.
The Chargers were largely in man coverage, playing it on 35 of Tagovailoa’s 45 throws, according to Tru Media. But they couldn’t maintain the proper leverage to limit Hill, who was able to get free release down the right sideline to the outside of cornerback J.C. Jackson on his 35-yard touchdown catch in the third quarter. Defensive back Ja’Sir Taylor didn’t fare much better on Hill’s 47-yard grab on a nearly identical route concept on third down that set up the winning touchdown.
“We just didn't do a good enough job of staying consistently connected in coverage,” Staley said Monday. “We gave up far too many explosions (passing plays of 16-plus yards) as a result of it."
Is it fixable? It depends.
Hill is one of the best receivers in the game for a reason, and his remarkable speed is unlike anything Los Angeles will see the rest of the regular season.
However, the AFC is loaded with elite quarterbacks, and a healthy Tagovailoa is certainly in that group. The Chargers will have to run that gauntlet to reach the Super Bowl, and there are now serious doubts about whether they have the corners on the outside to keep up with top-end passing games.
Those worries start with Jackson, who didn’t fare well in his first game since tearing his patellar tendon in Week 7 last season and didn’t play again after giving up Hill’s first score. Some of those struggles could reasonably be attributed to working his way back from a serious injury, but the 27-year-old didn’t exactly make a smooth transition with the Chargers before getting hurt.
Los Angeles needs Jackson to regain the form that made him worthy of a five-year contract with $40 million in guarantees as arguably the most sought after defender in free agency in 2022
If Jackson cannot get on track, Asante Samuel Jr. could move from the slot to fill in as the other outside defensive back opposite Michael Davis, with Taylor taking over as the “star” in packages with extra defensive backs.
Pass rush
Immediately after the game Staley assigned some of the blame for Tagovailoa’s outstanding productivity to a lack of pressure, failing to record a sack and hitting him twice on 45 pass attempts.
Staley wasn’t quite as harsh on his front after reviewing the tape, but the edge rush tandem of Joey Bosa and Khalil Mack have to be disruptive for this defense to work.
Is it fixable? Yes.
The Bosa-Mack duo is too good to be held in check for long. There won’t be another game this year in which Mack posts a 0% pass rush win rate on 32 snaps, as TruMedia graded his play against the Dolphins.
Run defense
After allowing a league-worst 5.42 yards per carry last season, the Chargers were in the middle of the pack versus Miami, giving up 70 yards on 20 attempts.
Is it fixable? To be determined.
The game flow was so heavily tilted toward the pass for the Dolphins it’s hard to make an accurate judgement on just how much improvement the rush defense has actually made. Facing Tennessee’s Derrick Henry this Sunday should offer a better assessment.
Situational play
When it really counted, Los Angeles did not play a smart brand of football against Miami. Jackson committed a totally unnecessary pass interference penalty to gift the Dolphins a 41-yard field goal on an untimed down to end the first half.
"Man, y’all going to make me curse, man,” Mack said Sunday of that turn of events. “I was pissed off. You’ve got to look at it and get it corrected. Championship football is not played that way, and we want to be champions. That’s not acceptable."
Jackson also ran an interception out of the end zone, leaving the Chargers
offense backed up and Justin Herbert nearly took a safety on the subsequent possession.
Is it fixable? To be determined.
Ultimate success in the NFL comes down to the ability to make key plays in the most important moments, and Staley’s teams have not risen to the occasion.
It’s not having the right personnel on the field against the Las Vegas Raiders late in overtime in the final game of the 2021 season when a tie would have been enough to make the playoffs.
It’s allowing the third-largest postseason comeback in league history to the Jacksonville Jaguars in January.
It’s the mistakes Los Angeles made en route to becoming the second team in the past five opening weekends that scored 34 points and lost.
The Chargers still have plenty of time to work through those gaffes and become a team capable of contending for a championship. Whether they can do it will decide what the team’s future looks like and whether Staley is a part of it.