Are The Los Angeles Chargers Too Cheap To Fire Brandon Staley?
Sitting at 4-6, and hosting the AFC best Baltimore Ravens this weekend, it is safe to say that Los Angeles Chargers Head Coach Brandon Staley is sitting on a red hot seat. After a 27-point blown lead in the first round of the playoffs last year, Staley and the Chargers hoped to put that behind them and put together a championship-quality season this year. Unfortunately, this entire season has felt very similar to the 2nd half of that grim playoff game.
The fan base is ready for a change, and in Los Angeles, generally, you have to listen to the fan base, especially if you are trying to grow your footprint. But the question is, will Dean Spanos and the Spanos powers that be make a change?
It is not officially confirmed, but the general consensus is that Brandon Staley was given a 4-year contract, worth roughly $4 million per year. Being that Staley is in 3rd season if he was fired, the Spanos family would have to pay him $4+ million not to coach their football team.
The narrative around the Spanos family is that they are too “cheap” to do this.
The previous two head coaches, Anthony Lynn and Mike McCoy, each got four seasons before they were shown the door. In fact, you have to go all the way back to 2001 when Mike Riley was fired after his 3rd season.
Currently, the NFL revenue share is just a touch under $12 billion, meaning that all 32 teams receive just under $400 million per season. The 2023 salary cap will reportedly be $224.8 million. I’m not a mathematician, but that leaves each team with roughly $175 million to spend on a coaching staff. Now, obviously, there are plenty of other expenses that ownership is responsible for, and the Chargers are building a brand new beautiful home facility in El Segundo, but this is just the money they receive from the revenue share. This does not include any other revenue earned through ticketing, concessions, merchandise, parking, etc.
So you can conceivably see that there should be plenty of money, even in terms of cash flow and not just worth, to pay the remainder of Staley’s buyout/contract, and go out and hire a big-name coach that will breathe some life back into this franchise.
At the very minimum, if the Chargers lose to Baltimore this Sunday, wouldn’t it be worth giving Kellen Moore the interim tag and see if he is the future coach in waiting? That could actually be a win-win. You get essentially a free trial, and the Chargers can probably shell out the same terms that they have offered the past three coaches.
If, and it’s a massive if, they decide to wait and then go after a big-name coach this offseason such as Jim Harbaugh, Bill Belichick, etc., that is going to require quite a bit more quiche.
Is that something that the Chargers will do, or are they just too cheap?
In a City where winning and celebrity are paramount, the clock is ticking on the Chargers to leave their mark, but the proverbial scorching seat that Brandon Staley currently resides on is certainly brandishing its impression. Time for the Los Angeles Chargers to put their money where their mouth is.