By the time the Los Angeles Chargers completed their meltdown and lost 31-30 to the Jacksonville Jaguars despite once leading 27-0, a lot of people around the NFL started talking about how the franchise needed to fire head coach Brandon Staley and replace him with Sean Payton.
“Congratulations [Sean Payton]. Welcome to Los Angeles as the new coach is the [Chargers],” wrote ESPN’s Stephen A. Smith. “There is no way Brandon Staley can keep his job after blowing this lead. There’s no coming back from this for him!”
“I don’t see a way that Staley keeps his job after this DEBACLE. Up 27-0 and lose with that talent. Sean Payton or someone else will be coaching that [team] next season,” said Fox Sports’ Shannon Sharpe.
While the speculation made some sense given Payton’s Super Bowl-winning pedigree, ESPN NFL insider Adam Schefter pumped the brakes on those assumptions on Sunday morning.
“Going into the game yesterday, with speculation swirling, the Chargers went out of their way to address the fact that they had no plans to make any changes with Brandon Staley,” said Schefter. “There will be more questions about Brandon Staley and it will be up to the Chargers to address those.
“There’s been a lot of speculation about Sean Payton in Los Angeles. It’s hard to see this franchise with its history being as aggressive as it would need to be to go get Sean Payton, as much as he might be able to help their franchise. So I don’t know how realistic that is.”
Essentially, Schefter is saying that the Spanos family is too cheap to consider paying Payton what he would want in order to be their next head coach, and that assumption was shared by others.
“I see a lot of Sean Payton-to-the-Chargers speculation, and there’s no doubt [Payton] would love to coach a talent like Justin Herbert. But such a move would be out of character for the Spanos ownership family. Brandon Staley makes $4M a year. Payton would cost 4-to-5 times that much,” said NOLA.com columnist Jeff Duncan.
That’s quite a reputation Dean Spanos and his family has built up for themselves, given their massive wealth.
About Sean Keeley
Along with writing for Awful Announcing and The Comeback, Sean is the Managing Editor for Comeback Media. Previously, he created the Syracuse blog Troy Nunes Is An Absolute Magician and wrote 'How To Grow An Orange: The Right Way to Brainwash Your Child Into Rooting for Syracuse.' He has also written non-Syracuse-related things for SB Nation, Curbed, and other outlets. He currently lives in Seattle where he is complaining about bagels. Send tips/comments/complaints to sean@thecomeback.com.