Six football seasons ago, Brandon Staley was the defensive coordinator at John Carroll University, a small, non-scholarship, Division III program in Ohio. That was 2016.
This is 2021, and Staley is the head coach of the Los Angeles Chargers, locked Thursday night in a critical game against AFC West rival Kansas City.
The 39-year-old is on a meteoric rise (he coached linebackers in Chicago for two seasons, then Denver for one, then became the defensive coordinator in LA last year before being promoted). As such, it shouldn’t surprise that he is unafraid of betting on big things happening even if their happening would defy the long held conventional wisdom of how big things happen.