Brandon Staley speaks in paragraphs. The New Orleans Saints’ new defensive coordinator has stayed out of the spotlight since he reunited with Kellen Moore in a role-reversal; Moore previously worked under Staley as Los Angeles Chargers offensive coordinator and head coach, respectively. And when Staley was given the opportunity to talk about his plans for the Saints defense in 2025 with WWL Radio’s Mike Hoss and Deuce McAllister, he had a lot to say.
Here’s everything Staley had to share about settling into New Orleans, what he values defensively and how his career, to this point, has shaped his coaching philosophies.
On building a defense
“I think anytime you build a defense you want to do it inside out. I think you’ve got to be a line of scrimmage team no matter what personnel groupings you play. You’ve got to start the game inside out. As Deuce knows, the game is not changing. No matter what anyone says, it’s still going to be a line of scrimmage game. So we’ve really tried to do that. But we’ve tried to build versatility in our front to be able to match up. It is a matchup league, but I think the types of matchups in the modern NFL are different. It is a three-receiver league, but people are running the ball out of three receivers. So I think having variety in your groupings to defend the run in three receivers is really important.”But I think what you want to be able to do is have the flexibility to play against any style in the NFL. I think you’ve got to build your team to defend a 22-21 (personnel) run game, “rugged in the cold” type game and you’ve got to win against the team that’s going to throw it 40 times. It has elite skill, elite quarterback. So I think that’s the vision for how I’ve tried to defend in the past, is make sure that we have a foundation that’s built to last that can go into any game, any environment that can withstand attrition. You know you’re going to lose guys. So you’ve got to have that flexibility and agility. But I think, you know, as I’ve gotten here, Jeff (Ireland)’s background and Mickey (Loomis)’s background, I think it’s been an outstanding fit. And then, Kellen and I being together, we believe in the same things philosophically and how to build a defense, and ultimately a football team.”
On “marrying” personnel to not be stubborn to scheme but effective
“Yeah, I think that’s such a great point. And I think that you just hit the, I think the most important part of team building is you don’t have this five-year window to like build a defense. What you’ve got to be able to do is take the defense that you have and make the best of it. And then hopefully as you go you grow it and mold it into maybe your preferred style. But every group of players has a bunch of superpowers and you need to tap into it. You know, and I think the different styles of defense of lines that we’ve had. You know, in Chicago, we had a really big front, Akiem Hicks, Eddie Goldman, Roy Robertson-Harris. That was a big group. Khalil Mack, Leonard Floyd on the edge. Like, we were a big team.”You know, when I went to the Rams, we were a little bit smaller than that. We had lighter edge players. You know, we had Leonard Floyd, Samson Ebukam, you know, Ogbo Okoronkwo, we had Aaron Donald who’s an undersized guy, even though he’s the greatest defensive player I’ve ever seen. He’s an undersized guy and we had lighter guys. We had to play a little bit more variety in our front because if we had just played four down we weren’t probably not big enough to do that. So we had to manipulate, get more guys on the line of scrimmage because we had smaller D-linemen. So we had to get more guys up there so that there were less double teams. We still have to tackle backs like Deuce McAllister back in the day. All right, that are big guys, Nick Chubb, Saquan Barkley, you know, the rugged runners. And so you can’t become a small team. I don’t care if it’s a passing league or not. Point-A to Point-B, the easiest thing for anybody to do is turn around and hand the ball off. And if you can’t stop the run, then you can’t control the game. And then you certainly can’t rush the passer. And you can’t affect the quarterback and you’re never going to get any takeaways. And your offense is going to be sitting on the sideline.
“So I think what we’ve tried to do is build the flexibility in our front to make sure that we handle the run game to try and create as many one-on-ones up front in run game and in pass rush as possible. And I think that what we’ve tried to do is have the flexibility in our front to get, hey, when it’s time to stop the run, we get our run guys in there. When it’s time to rush, we get our pass rushers in there. And I think that we’ve done that in a variety of ways. But big picture of that is how we try to do it. And I think on the edges, what I do think is changed, probably when you were playing a little bit, you’ve got to have athleticism on the edge now. In two-minute (situations), to rush against the premier quarterbacks in the NFL, you’ve got to the athleticism to run in chase. Because every premier quarterback can run now.”What is the personality of Staley’s defense?
“I think the identity is we want to play team defense. That’s the, the number one, you know, when I go into defensive meeting (with) guys is establishing that we’re going to play team defense. That’s going to take all 11 and it’s going to really take 22. If you need a two deep, they can really play together and fit together.That’s number one. But then you got — like I said, building inside out — you want to be a rugged point of attack team that kills blocks and tackles. And that to me is the essence of playing defense. It’s killing blocks at the line of scrimmage or on the perimeter and then being a really good tackling team and being a tackling team at all three levels of your defense.”
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