Brandon Staley has emerged as one of NFL's top young coaches – and his rise is about far more than X's and O's
Hutchinson Community College is not a dream destination. Few football players with aspirations of playing in college or beyond wouldn’t even list it as Plan B.
But poor grades or checkered pasts can alter plans, and the junior college in the middle of nowhere, Kansas, provides at least an opportunity for redemption. Coaches use that as one of their selling points and eventually talk down-on-their luck, would-be Division I prospects into accepting their offers, although getting them to stick around for the full two years can prove challenging.
Coaching success with limited resources and in a near-constant state of rebuilding requires flexibility, creativity, strong leadership and unwavering positivity.
That’s exactly why Los Angeles Chargers rookie head coach Brandon Staley calls a two-year stint as defensive coordinator at the school one of the most formative experiences of a coaching career that has featured a plethora of stops on every level and a steady yet rapid rise to the game’s highest ranks.
“Many of the guys we had were prime-level players and, had they had better academic credentials, they would’ve been playing in the SEC or Big 10 out of high school,” former Hutchinson head coach Rion Rhoades, under whom Staley coached in 2010 and 2011, told Paste BN Sports. “You have to pick them up a little bit because they’re having to go a tougher route. The thing about Brandon that I saw as the most meaningful in terms of relationships with players was, he was ultra-positive. Always very up-beat. Whenever he approached the players, he was very happy, was great at complimenting something that they had done, not just yesterday, but even a few weeks back. … He was good at elevating players’ confidence because he was a really positive guy.”
Those who have worked with Staley rave about his football acumen, and he does possess an exceptional strategic mind and eye for talent. However, building relationships and confidence levels and cultivating unity rank among the chief tenets of the 38-year-old’s coaching philosophy.
Those beliefs have enabled him to thrive in any capacity and at any level, whether at Hutchinson, as a Division III defensive coordinator just five years ago at John Carroll, or even with the Chicago Bears, Denver Broncos or Los Angeles Rams.
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Now, just 10 years after that time at Hutchinson — where he initially lived in Rhoades’ basement for four to five months, and in two years only saw his unit surrender more than 20 points in a game twice — Staley is preaching the same gospel in the biggest role of professional career to date.
A Chargers team chock full of talent but in need of a fresh vision and guidance has quickly shown signs of growth. Los Angeles exits its bye week with a 4-2 record and is half a game back of the AFC West lead.
Although still early on this journey with their new coach, the Chargers have bought into Staley’s approach. Already, they’re more than halfway toward surpassing last year’s win total (seven).
“I’ve been asked multiple times how he was able to make such a climb, and I just think he has such a complete set of skills,” Rhoades said. “Those skills would include his ability to deal with people, his understanding of the game and his willingness to be innovative and think outside the box. He’s got a really good knack for developing close relationships with those around him, and because of that, players are drawn to him.”
Staley has worked under nine different head coaches in college and the pros, and he gained invaluable lessons from each. But he refuses to call himself a disciple of any single person in his profession.
“I have said this to people, and I really mean it. I’m from the Bruce and Linda Staley coaching tree,” Staley told Paste BN Sports. “They taught me all that I believe in as far as being a competitor, being a leader, being a good person.”
Growing up in northeast Ohio, Staley closely studied his parents and devoted his energies to emulating them.
“I really wanted to be a coach from a young age because my parents were both teachers and my dad was a coach, so I really grew up trying to be like my parents. They were my heroes,” he said. “My dad always woke up every morning, reading the sports page and drinking coffee. So, I tried to be just like him: drinking coffee in the first grade and reading the sports section. That’s what I did to try to be like him, and I just fell in love with the game.
"And I saw the impact that both of my parents had on people, whether it was my mom as a sixth-grade English teacher or my dad as a youth sports coach, I just saw the impact that you can have on people, being a part of a team and the relationships that come with sports and competition. I think that’s what makes sports so special. It brings people together. And so, I knew at an early age that that’s what I wanted to do.”
Staley saw and heard how hard his mother worked to reach her students – especially those counted out by others because of their academic or behavioral struggles. He recognized the way each of his parents valued people regardless of background, and how whether in the classroom or field of competition, unity and acceptance fueled collective success.
Whether with their own children or their students and players, the Staleys always took time to listen before attempting to solve problems.
“They were outstanding listeners,” he said. “I talk a lot about that with leadership. They were great listeners. They always had the pulse of their classroom or their team, and the reason why they had the pulse was because they were observant. They weren’t just talking, and they made things personal in their relationships, so I fell in love with that as a young kid.”
Staley recognized how those very meaningful investments inspired his parents’ students and players to strive harder because “they didn’t want to let them down.”
Once he started coaching, Staley immediately applied the same principles. He saw coaching as an opportunity to similarly aid the lives of his players and believed a strong collective buy-in and sense of accountability would produce the best results.
The approach has served Staley well.
“It’s like coach (John) Wooden used to say, ‘People don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care’,” Rams head coach Sean McVay told Paste BN Sports, quoting the legendary former UCLA basketball coach. “Brandon’s players feel he cares about them. He’s invested in them as a person but also as a player, and he spends time trying to put them in the right spots. When they like you, and they know you can help improve their game, you’re checking some really important boxes, and that’s what Brandon does.”
Staley’s work under McVay in 2020 as the Rams' defensive coordinator produced such impressive results that, despite his lone season in the role, the Chargers hired him away as their head coach.
Staley inherited the task of fully developing prized quarterback Justin Herbert, the 2020 NFL Offensive Rookie of the Year, and elevating the roster around him.
But before he set about implementing his strategies for the team, he spent his initial days and weeks on the job getting to know everyone, from players to coaches to support staff and non-football employees, on a personal level.
From there, he tailored his vision to his players and began sharing his plans. He explained his goals for challenging his charges and turning the franchise around together.
“When you get to be around amazing coaches like Sean McVay, (Broncos coach) Vic Fangio, (former Broncos coach) John Fox – guys that have really shaped me – you learn a lot,” Staley said. “And what I try to do is get the players, when they meet me, to understand that I’m as fierce a competitor as they are, and that we’re doing this together, that we’re teammates. It’s not, I’m the coach and they’re a player. No – we’re teammates, and that they can believe in me that way. It’s not just some coach talking to them. No – this guy is in the fight with us, and I want them to know and feel that.”
And to prove it’s more than lip service, Staley and his assistants frequently meet with players and ask for critiques and suggestions for the game plans, and they work to implement those modifications.
When the Chargers play well, Staley gives his players the praise. When they fall short, he takes the blame. The coach believes that if his team falls short, he always could have done something to better position the players for success.
His example has only fueled a greater sense of accountability.
“Coach Staley is the type of guy to take all the responsibility,” Herbert said after a lopsided loss to the Baltimore Ravens in Week 6 – a game in which Staley said his ineffectiveness in game planning, and not his players' poor execution, cost his team the win. “It is on us. It is on us, players, out there, and we didn’t execute it. The coaches gave us a shot, and we didn’t do well enough. That’s the tough part about the game. It’s a long season. We have to come back from it, and we will be back next week.”
Despite the Chargers' promising start, Staley says that he still hasn’t figured this head coaching thing out. And he admits that to his players regularly, displaying an uncommon humility for a man in his position. But in doing so, Staley aims to lead by example.
“I just try to create that transparency and that ownership and explain that we’re not perfect,” he said. “But knowing that, you’d better be working to improve, because this NFL, it’s too competitive, and you’d better never feel like you’ve got it figured out.”
Follow Paste BN Sports' Mike Jones on Twitter @ByMikeJones.