Brandon Staley flipped on a cutup earlier this spring, with his whole team in the film room, and there was Khalil Mack taking his final snap as a Bear against the Buccaneers on Oct. 24. He had J.C. Jackson and Kyle Van Noy’s final snap in the Patriots’ blowout loss to Buffalo in January. He had Gerald Everett playing out the string for Seattle against Arizona. He had first-round pick Zion Johnson’s last snap at Boston College, against Wake Forest. And he had Sebastian Joseph-Day's last snap for the Rams in the Super Bowl.
Then, he showed the group how the 2021 Chargers season ended.
“To get the perspective that you can’t just lump them all with us, like they were all here last year, what I wanted them to know is this how the team feels—,” Staley told me Saturday. “The reason we don’t go backward is it doesn’t apply to many of them. It’s about moving forward and the mission that we have now together.”
Still, the sting remains.
Staley’s crew fell behind 29–14, roared back to tie it with two touchdowns in the final five minutes of regulation (with three fourth-down conversions and a touchdown at the buzzer on the final possession), then traded field goals with the Raiders in the extra session before losing in excruciating fashion at the end of the 10-minute overtime.
There was much debated in the days to follow. A pivotal decision by Staley to go for it on fourth down at his own 18 in the third quarter. Whether both teams should have played for a tie, given that would’ve put either in the playoffs. A timeout Staley took on the Raiders’ last drive, when it appeared Vegas was playing for that tie in letting the clock roll..
But because Staley loved the group he was coaching, for him, it all boils down to this—“My only regret is that we didn’t get a chance to compete in the tournament.”
And on that day a few weeks back, and during our conversation over the weekend, he’s made it clear that it’s long since been time for he, and his team, to move forward from such regrets. If his Chargers can do that, Staley thinks, then maybe that fateful night five months ago will prove to be more of a beginning than it was an ending.
“Even though I hate the way it ended, and it’s stayed with me ever since I started walking across the field after that kid made that kick, you can live with it because I know how our team competed, and I know where we’re headed,” he continued. “I think walking across that field, that’s what I was thinking about—where I need to go with my game, where we need to go as a team. And that’s what I’ve been thinking about ever since.”
With any luck, for the Chargers, the next step will be a big one.
