49ers assistant Brandon Staley looks for a coaching ‘reset’ after firing by Chargers

SANTA CLARA, Calif. (AP) — Brandon Staley’s rise up the coaching ranks was meteoric, going from a Division III defensive coordinator to head coach in the NFL in a dizzying five-year span.

Staley’s stay at the top of the football coaching profession proved to be brief as he was fired before the end of his third season as coach of the Los Angeles Chargers.

Staley took a couple of months of time off before resetting his coaching career in a lower-profile role as a defensive assistant for the San Francisco 49ers.

Staley welcomed the opportunity to work for a winning organization led by coach Kyle Shanahan and general manager John Lynch even if it didn’t have the responsibility as the play-caller and coordinator.

“I don’t think looking at it as a reset is a bad thing,” Staley said Wednesday. “I was really excited about the role. There is a lot of common ground in how to lead a football team. This is what I was looking for more than anything, an opportunity where you feel you’ll be aligned with the right people who do things the right way and you have a chance to improve, and where you also have a chance to affect a team that can compete for a championship. All those stars kind of aligned and it’s been energizing.”

Staley has a bit of an amorphous role with an official title of assistant head coach/defense under first-time coordinator Nick Sorensen. He is bringing some fresh ideas to add tweaks to what has been one of the NFL’s top units in recent years, will work with the secondary bringing a few new wrinkles and use his experience of calling defensive plays for four years and being a head coach for three as a resource for Sorensen and Shanahan.

But Shanahan doesn’t anticipate any awkwardness with a staff that features a former coordinator of the NFL’s top-ranked defense working under a coach who has never called plays in the NFL.

“Nick knows who the defensive coordinator is, and Brandon does,” Shanahan said. ”Brandon is in a real good spot, just leaving…

Source link : https://ca.sports.yahoo.com/news/49ers-assistant-brandon-staley-looks-100141733.html

Author : The Canadian Press

Publish date : 2024-05-23 10:01:41

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