Wide receiver Quentin Johnston’s playing time in Sunday night’s loss to the Ravens was a big topic at Chargers head coach Brandon Staley’s press conference on Monday.
Johnston left the game with a rib injury in the third quarter and did not return despite being cleared to do so by members of the training staff. Staley said after the game that the “flow of the game” led to the decision not to put Johnston back in and said Monday that the decision did not have to do with how the first-round pick is playing this season.
Staley said the decision to go with others was “not an indictment” on Johnston, who has 21 catches for 190 yards this season, and that there was “apprehension” about playing him because of the injury. He added that there was “no storyline” related to Johnston’s larger role on the team.
“He was cleared to come back into the game, but he was not 100 percent,” Staley said, via a transcript from the team. “We felt like, until he was 100 percent, that we were going to go with the other guys in the game. If he practices this week, then he will be right back out there versus New England. It wasn’t because of a lack of confidence. Quentin will be out there if he is able to be out there.”
The team’s transcript may have omitted part of Staley’s answers about Johnston. Kris Rhim of ESPN.com reports that Staley said the decision to hold Johnston out was “not because of any other part of your imagination” as part of the above answer and that the coach told a reporter “you are belaboring the point” in response to another question about the wideout.
Neither of those comments nor the reporter prefacing their question by saying that they “don’t mean to belabor the point” are part of the transcript and the team hasn’t posted video of the full press conference. The exchanges came a week after another testy press conference for a coach who hasn’t been able to right the Chargers’ ship this season and the questions aren’t likely to met with much better cheer as long as that remains the case.
