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The Los Angeles Chargers made multiple personnel changes in the days following their AFC wild-card round exit at the hands of the Jacksonville Jaguars. While the Chargers decided to keep head coach Brandon Staley for the 2023 season, they did elect to part ways with offensive coordinator Joe Lombardi, who joined the organization in 2021 following a run as the quarterbacks coach for the New Orleans Saints.
Chargers general manager Tom Telesco will not conduct a search for the team's next offensive coordinator all by himself. As he revealed during a press conference on Thursday, he plans to touch base with Justin Herbert to garner his input regarding just who the team should hire to fill the vacant position.
“I know that's the way Brandon [Staley] thinks and that's how I've always operated as well,” Telesco said. “Quarterbacks have kind of earned that. At least some context and some thought about what goes into the process and some input.”
For Telesco, there are several qualities that he will be looking for in the Chargers’ next offensive coordinator, but there is one that stands above the rest.
“The one thing we always talk about, and it has nothing to do with X's and O's, it's leadership,” Telesco said. “You have to have that as a coach, certainly as a coordinator, because you're leading that group. That's the first thing that you look at, leadership.
“Then, the ability to teach and communicate, and those both go together. You're dealing with a lot of players. Everybody learns differently, so we have to treat them all differently, but being able to really teach the concepts. In a simple manner, there's a lot that goes into it. Those are two things. I like to look at their backgrounds of where they're from, who they learned from, things like that.”
In the big picture, the Chargers are coming off of quite a roller-coaster year on the offensive side of the ball. They ranked at ninth in the NFL in total yards per game with a 359.3 average. The AFC West side also posted a 23.0 points per game average, which was a notable drop from the 2021 campaign (27.9).
