Brandon Staley has had a very interesting tenure as the head coach of the LA Chargers. Hired in the 2021 offseason after the team parted ways with Anthony Lynn, Staley has been extremely polarizing and has had drastic ups and downs in just two seasons.
He quickly won fans over with his fantastic press conferences and his perceived ability to change the culture of the team. Staley became even more popular when the Chargers got off to a 4-1 start in large part due to his aggressiveness as a head coach.
Then the Chargers went 5-7 in the next 12 games with some ugly losses on the books and the opinion on Staley cooled off. Fast forward to the 2022 season where the Chargers had a less-than-ideal start and some fans started to turn on Staley.
Making the playoffs was not enough to fully win back the fanbase as in that process Staley decided to play Mike Williams in a meaningless Week 18 game only for him to get hurt. Williams was not present for the AFC Wild Card Round, where the Chargers blew a 27-0 lead, and most fans had fully turned on Staley.
The front office did not fully turn on the head coach and is running it back with him in what many believe is a do-or-die season for both Staley and GM Tom Telesco. While most fans still have their guard up with buying into Staley, he is doing a good job of trying to win the fanbase back with some (perhaps intentional) love to the fans while he was mic'd up in training camp.
Brandon Staley is all about the fans 🥰 pic.twitter.com/BG702vxbmU
— Bolt Beat (@BB_Chargers) July 30, 2023
Brandon Staley is slowly starting to win Chargers fans back
This was a very nice thing for Staley to do in front of his entire team and fans should appreciate it. But let's also not pretend like he didn't know he was mic'd up and knew this would be on the internet in due time. It doesn't make it less sweet, but Staley probably knew what he was doing to some degree.
And that is fine. If he wants to show the fanbase that he and the team appreciates it then there is nothing wrong with it. Either way, it is a nice gesture that is slowly going to win fans over as the pain of last season starts to fade.
Staley won't fully win over the fanbase until the team sees consistent success, though. The Chargers don't have to win the Super Bowl for fans to buy in but they have to have a good season that is consistent as well as some playoff success. Until then, fans are always going to have their guards up.