3 scorching hot Chargers takes to get fans through the summer

Chargers hot take No. 3: Brandon Staley is the best head coach the Chargers have had since Marty Schottenheimer

Have to finish the article with the hottest take of them all. Brandon Staley is not very popular among fans (especially on Twitter) after some of his questionable decisions and the fact that the Chargers blew a 27-0 lead in the playoffs.

Look, is Staley perfect? Absolutely not. There are plenty of mistakes he has made that deserved to be criticized at the time and still deserve to be criticized. Do some of those mistakes get blown out of proportion? Yeah, a bit.

Heck, we are guilty of it here at Bolt Beat. If you go back on our Twitter account you will see several instances where we got wrapped up in the moment during a game, both for good and bad reasons. That is part of being a fan.

Now that some time has passed and the pain of blowing that 27-0 lead has subsided, it is easier to objectively view Staley's tenure so far with the Chargers. And while it is not a high bar to cross at all, it is clear that he is the best head coach the team has had since Marty Schottenheimer.

He is better than Norv Turner, better than Mike McCoy and better than Anthony Lynn. Again, not necessarily the best coaches in the world to beat out, but Chargers fans should feel confident in saying that Staley is better than that trio.

Staley has turned in a winning season in both of his seasons as head coach. In 2021 the Chargers fell just short of the playoffs but the entire reason why they won nine games was Staley's bold decisions early on in the season. The Houston Texans' loss from that season still stings and definitely hurts Staley's resume, but the Chargers also had a very thin roster that season and were missing some of their key leaders due to covid-19.

In 2022 the Chargers were able to overcome some of the worst injury luck in the entire league to make the playoffs. That is a massive accomplishment. We can all pretend like we all knew the team was going to make the playoffs but let's be honest, most fans waived the white flag after the team lost to Vegas to go to 6-6 on the season.

What did the Chargers do? They rallied and won four straight games to make the playoffs.

Staley is far from perfect, and he still has a lot to prove until we can consider him a great head coach. But the fact is that typical sports fan impatience has given fans a cloudier view of what Staley really is. The guy is 19-15 in his first two years. That is a better record than Sean Payton had in his first two years.