The Chargers lost a heartbreaker on Thursday night, falling to Kansas City on a walk-off touchdown from Travis Kelce, who tallied a career-high 191 yards in the winning effort. Thursday was a night of missed opportunities for the Bolts, who were stonewalled on fourth down three times including twice inside the 10-yard-line.
Much of the blame fell on first-year coach Brandon Staley, who has quickly gained a reputation for being one of the league’s most aggressive play-callers, rarely punting while often going for fourth downs inside his own territory. The Chargers have been more successful than most, cashing in on 57.7 percent of their fourth-down chances this year, though that didn’t stop the Twitter masses from coming after him, framing Staley’s “all in” philosophy as needlessly reckless and a textbook case of overcoaching.
Supporters of Staley would call that criticism shortsighted, prioritizing results over process in subscribing to an outdated model of thinking. Certainly, there’s a time and a place for everything and even the analytics would say Staley was probably pushing it to end the first half, keeping his offense on the field instead of taking the easy points. But coaching scared is not how you beat the high-powered Chiefs, owners of the NFL’s longest active winning streak at seven games.
All of us are resistant to change—it’s human nature. And while the machinations of the NFL’s analytics movement may not appeal to purists who grew up on the ground-and-pound stylings of Bill Parcells and other relics of another age, Staley’s approach is more in tune with the way today’s game is played, coaching to win instead of coaching not to lose.
You can be nostalgic all you want, waxing poetic about the good ol’ days when post play existed in the NBA and aces like Nolan Ryan pitched nine innings instead of six. Sports are evolving, whether we like it or not. The Chargers may have left points on the table Thursday night, but Staley won’t apologize for pushing the envelope on fourth down, nor should he.
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