Defense will be key if Chargers are to win
Here’s how the Chargers plan to win games this year, if there’s an NFL season:
Protect the ball on offense.
Dominate on defense. It’s not a bad plan for this reason: The D should be good, perhaps very good.
There’s a lot of speed and versatility, headed by Derwin James. There’s a lot of football IQ in Casey Hayward and Chris Harris and Linval Joseph. At 24, Joey Bosa has made two Pro Bowls.
Put another way, if the defense is merely C-plus — as it was last year — then Chargers scouts led by Tom Telesco and coaches led by Gus Bradley should have a lot to answer for.
The Chargers drafted five of their current defenders in the first round, four others in the second round and one starter in the third round.
Count Bradley among the bigger investments, too.
While Team Spanos isn’t known for spending uppertier money on coaches — remember, in the final four years of the club’s San Diego era, head coach Mike Mccoy ranked around 30th in salary — Bradley surely isn’t near the bottom of the pay scale. Not as a former NFL head coach who coordinated the league’s top scoring defense eight years ago with the Seahawks and got a contract extension from the Chargers two years ago after the Packers and Seahawks showed interest.
Gus’ guys ought to be B-plus or better, given also that Telesco and Bradley have had four years together to match player talent with designs. No other D-coordinator in the AFC West has been in his current job as long.
The rival Chiefs, of course, are still a problem for the Chargers.
While Telesco denied in 2017 he would tailor his drafts to counter the Chiefs, Kansas City may have forced his hand.
Good luck trying to beat the Chiefs if your defense isn’t fast.
“They spread you out,” Bradley said Wednesday in a video chat with reporters, “and it’s so important to have that speed on the defensive side to eat up the grass, even checkdowns, short passes. Because when they have an opportunity to turn around and get you one-on-one in space, they’re a difficult team to defend. You really have to get faster on defense.”
In a big move last month for a swift inside linebacker, Telesco traded two premium picks for the first time in his eight drafts to get the
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23rd pick from the Patriots, enabling him to take Kenneth Murray.
Bradley said Murray resembles the explosive James — Telesco’s top 2018 draftee — in that he can perform a wide range of duties. He said the Oklahoma alum has several traits that stand out, listing them in this order: intensity, leadership “that comes pretty natural,” run-and-hit ability, length and an “alpha” personality.
Murray weighs 240 pounds but blazed a 4.50second 40-yard dash at the NFL Scouting Combine.
Given the investment, the Chargers expect Murray to help them as a rookie. Think of him as asbestos, reducing the chance that rivals — headed by the Chiefs — can burn the defense with passes to running backs.
Just nine picks after Telesco got Murray, the Chiefs again stomped the gas pedal. They invested their top pick in Clyde Edwards-helaire. He is a running back, and in 20 years as a head coach, Andy Reid had never taken a running back in the first round. Edwards-helaire rushed for 16 touchdowns last year with LSU and gained 6.6 yards per carry.
Bradley noticed the Chiefs’ pick. Oh, yes, he did.
“I saw that and I thought, ‘Oh, boy, they just got better with him in the backfield,’ ” he said. “It’s such a matchup-driven league now — who’s covering the back out of the backfield.”
Bradley mentioned his defense’s struggles last year against Raiders running back Jalen Richard. The shifty pass-catcher fueled a game-winning drive in Oakland.
Defensively, the 2019 Chargers were 14th in points and sixth in yards, but they were dead last in takeaways. While turnovers f luctuate among most defenses from year to year, Bradley implied quarterbacks were too comfortable against his defense last season.
“We didn’t do a good enough job of affecting the quarterback,” he said. Giving quarterbacks more to contend with this year, he said he may mix in more man and split-safety coverage to go with his preferred “Cover 3-zone” designs.
He said “subtle” changes in the front’s tactics should bode well for second-year tackle Justin Jones, who lines up between guard and center. Related, swapping out much-respected leader Brandon Mebane should be an upgrade at nose tackle, if only because Joseph, 31, is nearly four years younger and has about 40 fewer games of wear and tear. Joseph went to the Pro Bowl in 2016 and 2017 with the Giants and Vikings, respectively. He can pressure the quarterback in addition to clogging the interior if he still has juice in his legs.
Bradley praised the ball skills of second-year safetycornerback Nasir Adderley, saying the young defender could audition at outside corner opposite Hayward. He said tackle Jerry Tillery, a first-round selection who had a skimpy rookie season, will be much stronger this year because of increased training from last offseason, when a shoulder injury limited him.
Rare versatility among his linebackers and defensive backs, the coach said, should show up in the matchup chess game.
While all 32 teams face the challenge of shutdowns caused by the coronavirus pandemic, Bradley said two experiences could work in his favor. His 2011 Seahawks D finished seventh in points despite the NFL labor dispute that kept teams from practicing for 132 days between March and July.
And, he is accustomed to getting young players up to speed fast, saying Seahawks coach Pete Carroll and GM John Schneider insisted on it.
The Gus bus shouldn’t be stuck in neutral, if the NFL is able to play its games this year.
tom.krasovic@sduniontribune.com