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Kris Rhim, ESPN
LAS VEGAS — After losing to the Denver Broncos last Sunday, Chargers coach Brandon Staley said the bright side moving forward was that they could turn the page to the Las Vegas Raiders in a short week. The Chargers did, but that page featured one of the most embarrassing losses in franchise history to a team that hadn’t scored a touchdown since Week 12.
After the Chargers’ 63-21 loss to the Raiders on Thursday night, the most points the Chargers had allowed in franchise history and the most the Raiders had ever scored, Staley said he was confident his players still believed in him and that he deserved to continue as head coach.
“I know what I’ve done here for three years, and I know what I’ve put into this, and I know where we’re capable of going,” Staley said. “I know the type of coach I am. I believe in myself.”
The 42-point loss was the Chargers’ (5-9) third-worst loss in franchise history, and their 42-0 deficit at halftime was the most lopsided half in the NFL since 2014. But Staley pointed to those struggles as the challenges of playing in the NFL.
“Games like this happen in the NFL,” he said. “To every coach that’s ever coached in this league. You can look at any great coach that’s ever coached in the league. Sometimes games like this happen, and I don’t need to retrace history, but it’s just, it’s part of sports.”
When a reporter pointed out to Staley that blowouts like Thursday’s aren’t normal in the NFL, Staley backtracked that point.
“Tonight was not a normal occurrence, everything that could have gone wrong in all three phases went wrong,” he said.
Staley said that he will speak with Chargers ownership on Friday, as he always does the day after a game, and was expecting it to “be nothing new.”
The Chargers have only fired one head coach midseason in franchise history, when they severed ties with Kevin Gilbride in 1998. Staley is 24-24 over his 48 games as head coach, where the Chargers’ defense, which he calls plays for and was expected to turn around when he was hired in 2021, has been the team’s Achilles heel this season. They rank 29th in opponents’ points per game (24.8) and 28th in yards per game (359.6).
Thursday night was the latest indictment.
After losing to the Baltimore Ravens in Week 12, Staley dismissed the idea that he wasn’t connecting with his players. He said that the Chargers would be getting “blown out of the stadium” if his messaging had stopped coming across to the locker room.
Thursday’s loss fit Staley’s description. But Khalil Mack, who called it one of “the nastiest, ugliest losses of my career,” said that while players still believe in Staley, it doesn’t matter.
“This s— starts within yourself,” Mack said. “And if you don’t feel this today, and if this don’t piss you off, I don’t know what will. No coach can tell you in these moments anything besides knowing that your name is on this s—. It should have you up at night.”
Inside the Chargers’ locker room, multiple players declined to speak with reporters, including running back Austin Ekeler, who walked up to reporters with a simple message before leaving: “I got nothing for you. We got our ass kicked. … Plain and simple. That’s my answer to all your questions.”
The Chargers were missing a few of their most important players in Justin Herbert and Keenan Allen, but they lost to a team that was led by an interim head coach, missing their Pro Bowl running back and starting a rookie quarterback that the Chargers sacked seven times in Week 4.
For those reasons, Rashawn Slater didn’t care much about who the Chargers were missing.
“We just got our ass kicked. That’s all that happened,” Slater said. “This is the f—ing NFL. People get hurt. S— happens. We got to finish. We got to play better than that. That’s really all there is to it. I take full ownership of my performance. It was terrible. There’s no excuses. No feeling sorry.”
The Chargers play the Buffalo Bills a week from this Saturday at SoFi Stadium at 8 p.m. ET.