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Will Brandon Staley survive with the Chargers after historic playoff loss? | You Pod to Win the Game

Yahoo Sports’ Charles Robinson and Frank Schwab discuss Brandon Staley’s job security after the Los Angeles Chargers’ tough playoff loss to the Jacksonville Jaguars in the Wild Card Round and ask where the Chargers go from here.

Video Transcript

[CROWD CHEERING]

FRANK SCHWAB: What about the Chargers? We got to talk about them.

CHARLES ROBINSON: Yeah.

FRANK SCHWAB: I mean, I guess we're sitting here Sunday night and nothing's happened to Brandon Staley. For everybody who was saying this guy might not survive this, I don't necessarily disagree, like, with the sentiment. Mike Williams doesn't play in this game because of his inane decision in Week 18 and they blew this, and it's just-- and I kind of, tongue in cheek, whatever, kind of been trolling a little bit, said on Twitter, boy, that Chargers team looked like a team that was tired from not resting last week in the second half, huh? Right? Like, they kind of ran out of gas. Maybe should have taken that bye week. What do you think of just where the Chargers go from here? Even if Brandon Staley returns, it's like, this is the kind of loss that can really linger on of franchise for a long time.

CHARLES ROBINSON: OK, here's where I'm going to-- I'm going to do my thing. I'm going to do the patience thing here, Right

FRANK SCHWAB: OK. All right.

CHARLES ROBINSON: Mike Williams, he deserves every bit of that criticism. He screwed up, right? Like, you sacrificed the player in a meaningless game who could have helped you in this game and it definitely hurt them, OK, so he deserves every bit of that criticism. The missed kick from a kicker who just doesn't miss, OK-- had one other miss, right, he misses just an absolute gimme-- is not Brandon Staley's fault, OK?

FRANK SCHWAB: Correct. Correct.

CHARLES ROBINSON: Could have meant the difference in the game if that guy just makes the kick.

FRANK SCHWAB: Second miss all year. Yeah, yeah.

CHARLES ROBINSON: Right. Bosa losing his mind, not on Brandon Staley, OK? That's on Bosa. You know what? He's a $100 million defensive end, OK? He's a team leader, he's a captain, he's an All Pro guy, he's a, you know, perennial Defensive Player of the Year candidate. He [BLEEP] up, OK? And he, by the way- like, he was ready to tear it out of the frame a couple of plays, OK?

And that's on him and he should take-- he should absolutely take the blame for that and know that he hurt Brandon Staley, too. Brandon Staley had more to lose here than probably anybody else on that roster, right? It's just a bunch of young guys, most of them. They also were up 27 to 0.

[LAUGHS]

OK? I'm not going to-- I'm not going to not give them credit for the fact that they were up 27 to 0 in this game. So I sit there and I'm like, is Brandon Staley clean? Not at all. Has he made mistakes? Yes and it's frustrating that he seems to need to make the mistakes to learn from the mistakes, OK? I think he will learn from the Mike Williams thing. It sucks that he had to learn from the Mike Williams thing. Like I said, they took a step forward.

They got into the playoffs. They were up 27 to 0 in a game they definitely shouldn't lose if a kicker makes it. We're--

FRANK SCHWAB: Yeah, sure.

CHARLES ROBINSON: --going, man, Staley, you screwed this up. You're lucky you pulled it out. Whatever. And by the way, Sean Payton this, Sean Payton that. Sean Penn going to make $20 million a year and the Spanos family does not pay people like that, OK? They don't. If they decide now that they're going to do it, it's because they don't have stadium costs, they have a cheap as hell lease--

FRANK SCHWAB: No, because they're paying like $1 rent $1 for them.

CHARLES ROBINSON: $1 a year. Yeah.

FRANK SCHWAB: [LAUGHS]

CHARLES ROBINSON: The $1 a year sweetheart lease--

FRANK SCHWAB: In a $6 billion stadium.

CHARLES ROBINSON: --in the NFL.

FRANK SCHWAB: Yeah.

CHARLES ROBINSON: Yeah. So I mean, like, it's a gift, basically, from the league. Do I think Sean Payton should want that job? Yeah, absolutely. Sure.

FRANK SCHWAB: Heck yeah. Oh, that's easily--

CHARLES ROBINSON: That's a wonderful job.

FRANK SCHWAB: --the best opening.

CHARLES ROBINSON: Yeah.

FRANK SCHWAB: Easily.

CHARLES ROBINSON: I don't think there's any question, if it comes open. I think Staley gets another year here and I think the only reason--

FRANK SCHWAB: OK

CHARLES ROBINSON: --you would fire him is if Payton says to you, I am coming. Just fire him.

FRANK SCHWAB: I'm a done deal. Yeah.

CHARLES ROBINSON: Yeah. I'm a done deal. Not fire him and then we'll talk. I am-- let's park the plane on the tarmac, we'll do the-- you'll put the contract in front of me, I'll agree to it verbally, fire the guy. You deal with the Rooney Rule backlash because clearly you have chosen a coach without interviewing anybody else, or you'll go through the sham interviews.

FRANK SCHWAB: [LAUGHS]

CHARLES ROBINSON: That's the only way that I would fire Brandon Staley at this point.

FRANK SCHWAB: I agree with that. I'll give you that. Yeah. Only if you know you can land him. Maybe even Harbaugh, whatever, but don't do it and, you know, then say, all right, who do we got? Yeah, you need to know if you're firing a guy like Brandon Staley, who, I have been critical of him the last couple of weeks, but 10 and 7. Yeah, like you said, they were up 27-0 in a playoff game. It's just this is just-- it really is the kind of loss where you're just like, boy, this just sticks with you a long time. And now the Chargers are going into that whole like Justin Herbert contract extension. That's going to eat up a lot of cap. This-- god, it's a bad loss.

CHARLES ROBINSON: Let's be honest about the world we live in and our part that we play in it. All we did was [BLEEP] on Trevor Lawrence for a half and then [BLEEP] on Brandon Staley for a half.

FRANK SCHWAB: [LAUGHS]

CHARLES ROBINSON: That was it. That's what we do now. We take everything that we say about this guy and then we just slide it over to the other guy. And now we're not sitting here talking-- instead we're talking about all the--

FRANK SCHWAB: Unless it's Kirk Cousins. He just gets it all the time.

CHARLES ROBINSON: Right. Yeah, it doesn't matter what--

FRANK SCHWAB: No matter-- [LAUGHS]

CHARLES ROBINSON: It doesn't matter what Kirk does.

FRANK SCHWAB: Whether he's good or not, it doesn't matter.

[LAUGHS]

CHARLES ROBINSON: He does something good, it's like, what other guy helped him do that? Like--

[LAUGHTER]

--Kevin O'Connell is such a great coach. Justin Jefferson is the greatest wide receiver in the world. Kirk is lucky.

FRANK SCHWAB: Indeed. Yeah, right.

CHARLES ROBINSON: No. Just, I mean--

FRANK SCHWAB: But no, I get what you mean.

CHARLES ROBINSON: --you know, we're sitting here and we're talking about all the virtues of Trevor Lawrence when, hey, he did throw four [BLEEP] picks, man. Like he did-- come on. It wasn't, you know-- like, yeah, congratulations, you pulled yourself up by the bootstraps, so why don't we say, well, hey, Brian Stanley did-- it was a 27-0 lead. They clearly came out ready to go. It wasn't like they were not focused or prepared. They were clearly focused and prepared and the defense played really well and they were picking off passes and, you know, they had it going. They just-- they lost it.