24champ
09-25-2007, 02:24 AM
OAKLAND, Calif. – As the San Diego Chargers' presumptive season of triumph unravels like Ryan Leaf under a heckler's spell, it's time to pose a serious question.
Which is more radical – firing a coach after a 14-2 season, or firing one who's 1-2?
I'm not suggesting that Chargers general manager A.J. Smith will relieve Norv Turner of his responsibilities following San Diego's embarrassing 31-24 defeat to the Packers in Green Bay on Sunday. To do so would be to call Smith's own professional credibility into question.
But make no mistake – San Diego's swift fall from the ranks of the NFL's elite is an impending disaster that needs to be dealt with, and soon. And unfortunately for the Chargers and their fans, the coach most qualified to do so is not the man who'll be wearing the headset on San Diego's sideline come Sunday, but the guy whom Smith pushed out last February.
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As Smith promised, Turner is no Marty Schottenheimer, a coach the headstrong general manager detested for his conservative tendencies, corny sayings and propensity for making dubious decisions in playoff games. But Schottenheimer, who last season coached the Chargers to the league's best record before they all but handed a divisional-round playoff victory to the New England Patriots, did serve one vital function in Smith's universe: He was the quintessential scapegoat.
Anytime anything went wrong during Schottenheimer's five-year tenure in San Diego, and even when things didn't go right enough for Smith's liking, the personnel man-turned-GM could blame the coach and Schottenheimer's trademark "Martyball" for the Chargers' failings.
But as Smith flew home from Green Bay on Sunday evening – as when he and the Chargers made their middle-of-the-night escape from New England last Monday morning – he saw the current culprit staring back at him through the reflection in his first-class-cabin window.
In retrospect, was Martyball really so bad? As anyone who has watched San Diego closely knows, A.J.-ball has been even more unsightly. For the Chargers, the future's so dark, they've got to wear headlamps.
All across the NFL, talent evaluators and coaches are appalled at the way San Diego has looked so flat, unprepared and disorganized under Turner. On Sunday at McAfee Coliseum, where Turner flailed as the Raiders' head coach from 2004-05, players and front-office executives talked expansively about his shortcomings and expressed skepticism that he can motivate a Chargers team that played so passionately under Schottenheimer.
"That team is a mess, and you know the players are wondering what the hell is going on," one NFL veteran who played for Turner in Oakland told me Sunday night. "They're looking to Norv for answers and leadership, and they won't get it. Marty had them on edge, ready to play, and they responded to that. And now this? They're a great team but it's not working, and it's not gonna work."
Sure, it's early, and the Chargers theoretically are a talented enough group to shake off their sketchy start and emerge once again as title contenders. But anyone who thinks this is a minor detour on the way to Glendale, Ariz. is either delusional or a white-haired man with the initials "A.J.S." monogrammed onto his dress shirts.
When LaDainian Tomlinson stares blankly ahead and proclaims that his team is "lost," as the star halfback did during his postgame media conference Sunday, you can bet that he and his teammates privately are questioning the direction of the franchise. How can they not, given that they returned virtually everyone from last year's team that ripped up the league?
It isn't hard to deduce what has changed – Schottenheimer's emotional and relentless leadership style has been replaced by Turner's nervous, detached stewardship. That seemed like a plausible trade if you believed Smith's propaganda: that he'd assembled such a talented team in San Diego it could practically run itself, that a skilled play-caller who stayed out of the way was the ideal choice to coach this star-studded ensemble.
I spent several minutes alone with Tomlinson after the Chargers' 38-14 defeat to the Patriots, and I've seldom seen a superstar so bewildered and deflated after a regular-season game. That LT got into an animated verbal exchange Sunday with Philip Rivers after the quarterback ignored him on a third-down play in the third quarter (instead forcing an incomplete pass to tight end Antonio Gates) is another sign that the pressure is starting to get to the team's most important players.
How did things get so toxic? It started when Chargers owner Dean Spanos, despite what he later would term a "dysfunctional" relationship between Smith and Schottenheimer, stayed flaccid after the playoff defeat, watching helplessly for nearly a month as coordinators Cam Cameron and Wade Phillips got head coaching jobs in Miami and Dallas, respectively. Finally – after Schottenheimer asked to hire his brother, Kurt, as the new defensive coordinator – Spanos fired him and essentially appointed Smith, an accomplished talent evaluator with questionable people skills, as the undisputed king.
Smith's immediate reaction was to consolidate his power. He brought in Ted Cottrell, whom he knew from his days as a Buffalo Bills assistant scouting director, as the defensive coordinator. His prime criteria in hiring Turner, he of the 59-82-1 career record as a head coach, seemed to be, "Obeys Orders And Recognizes My Ultimate Authority."
Smooth move, A.J.
Because Turner is an accomplished offensive coordinator who has a knack for play-calling, Smith, like others before him, got lured into believing Turner could work the same magic as a head coach. This just in: He can't. And some of us have been saying so for a long time.
Talk to Turner's former players, and this is what they'll tell you: Give the man one job, and he'll do that job well. But give him a big job with multiple responsibilities, and he gets anxious and scattered and has a hard time doing any one thing capably.
That's what we're seeing with San Diego's once-mighty offensive attack so far in 2007. The Chargers have been strangely unable to terrorize defenses with Tomlinson's multifaceted talents, and Turner has shown a penchant for disjointed, conservative play calls at key times. This was true on Sunday when San Diego, leading 21-17, had a chance to put away the Packers but seemed to be playing not to lose while failing to produce a key first down. The Chargers were flat-out brutal in the red zone during their season-opening 14-3 victory over the Chicago Bears and were beyond atrocious against the Patriots.
Under Schottenheimer, this team had an obvious offensive mission statement, enunciated by a line that blew teams off the ball and a halfback who worked in tandem by wearing down deflated defenses. So far, San Diego's identity under Turner is that it doesn't have one.
Defensively, the team has struggled with the transition from the ultra-aggressive Phillips to the tamer Cottrell, though injuries on the defensive line have played a role. Most glaring, the secondary has been shredded on numerous occasions, often because the Chargers haven't been where they're supposed to be. That's coaching, pure and simple.
Coverage breakdowns led to Randy Moss running wide open for a touchdown in the Patriots game and other easy completions by Tom Brady. On Sunday, the Packers' winning points came when Brett Favre threw a sweet slant to Greg Jennings on which cornerback Antonio Cromartie was overly aggressive and strong safety Clinton Hart was caught flat-footed and out of position. Jennings caught the pass in stride and raced to a 57-yard touchdown.
The play evoked memories of Troy Aikman's game-clinching pass to Alvin Harper against the 49ers in the '92 NFC championship game, back when Turner was Dallas' boy-wonder offensive coordinator, and before he and the rest of Jimmy Johnson's high-profile assistants (Dave Wannstedt, whose Pitt Panthers lost to Connecticut on Saturday; Dave Campo; Butch Davis) proved largely ineffective once they got a chance to be in charge, most glaringly in the pros.
Beyond strategic concerns there is the motivation issue, one highlighted after the Patriots game when Gates, an All-Pro performer, said San Diego had come out "flat" for its nationally televised showdown with the team that ended its '06 season. Yeah, guys, why get up for that one when that big tilt at Lambeau was looming?
Even Turner's former players who speak highly of him concede that getting the locker room revved up is not his forte.
"I think Norv's a good coach, a good play-caller who had a tough situation from the jump, because that team lost both its coordinators," Raiders wideout Ronald Curry said after Sunday's game. "He can be a little passive at times, but everybody's got a different approach."
Another former Raiders wideout – a guy named Jerry Rice, who before his emergence as a reality-TV dancing star earned some notoriety as the greatest receiver of all time – was even more pointed in an interview last week on Fox Sports Radio. Pulling the Chargers out of their funk, Rice told hosts Andrew Siciliano and Krystal Fernandez, is "going to be up to their head coach. I don't know if Norv Turner can do that because I've played under him, and I don't know if he's going to be able to motivate that team that way."
In fairness, what does Jerry Rice really know about motivation? Oh, wait, that's right: everything.
So how does San Diego fight its way out of this jam? Well, for starters, the people in charge of the franchise need to stop pretending a problem doesn't exist, and to come up with a bold solution to address it.
Is it so outrageous to think that cutting their losses by firing Turner now – and replacing him with inside linebackers coach Ron Rivera, who interviewed for several head coaching jobs (including San Diego's) after his strong showing as the Bears' defensive coordinator the previous three seasons, could save the Chargers' season?
Perhaps, but is that any more outlandish than getting rid of a coach with a 200-126-1 career regular-season record who was coming off a 14-2 campaign and had the unqualified support of Tomlinson, the league MVP and most important presence in the locker room?
Personally, I don't think so. The Chargers' window of opportunity, once perceived to be vast, is closing up like LT's running lanes, and desperate times call for desperate measures. Here's one that Spanos could implement: fire Turner and Cottrell – and Smith, the man responsible for their presence – and bring back Schottenheimer, today, to try to restore the winning edge the coach worked so hard to instill.
Yeah, I know, it sounds kind of crazy. But if you look at the whole picture, the status quo is even crazier.
http://sports.yahoo.com/nfl/news;_ylt=Atz4kIg8qVqsJQqAevAubKJDubYF?slug=ms-morningrush092407&prov=yhoo&type=lgns
Which is more radical – firing a coach after a 14-2 season, or firing one who's 1-2?
I'm not suggesting that Chargers general manager A.J. Smith will relieve Norv Turner of his responsibilities following San Diego's embarrassing 31-24 defeat to the Packers in Green Bay on Sunday. To do so would be to call Smith's own professional credibility into question.
But make no mistake – San Diego's swift fall from the ranks of the NFL's elite is an impending disaster that needs to be dealt with, and soon. And unfortunately for the Chargers and their fans, the coach most qualified to do so is not the man who'll be wearing the headset on San Diego's sideline come Sunday, but the guy whom Smith pushed out last February.
ADVERTISEMENT
As Smith promised, Turner is no Marty Schottenheimer, a coach the headstrong general manager detested for his conservative tendencies, corny sayings and propensity for making dubious decisions in playoff games. But Schottenheimer, who last season coached the Chargers to the league's best record before they all but handed a divisional-round playoff victory to the New England Patriots, did serve one vital function in Smith's universe: He was the quintessential scapegoat.
Anytime anything went wrong during Schottenheimer's five-year tenure in San Diego, and even when things didn't go right enough for Smith's liking, the personnel man-turned-GM could blame the coach and Schottenheimer's trademark "Martyball" for the Chargers' failings.
But as Smith flew home from Green Bay on Sunday evening – as when he and the Chargers made their middle-of-the-night escape from New England last Monday morning – he saw the current culprit staring back at him through the reflection in his first-class-cabin window.
In retrospect, was Martyball really so bad? As anyone who has watched San Diego closely knows, A.J.-ball has been even more unsightly. For the Chargers, the future's so dark, they've got to wear headlamps.
All across the NFL, talent evaluators and coaches are appalled at the way San Diego has looked so flat, unprepared and disorganized under Turner. On Sunday at McAfee Coliseum, where Turner flailed as the Raiders' head coach from 2004-05, players and front-office executives talked expansively about his shortcomings and expressed skepticism that he can motivate a Chargers team that played so passionately under Schottenheimer.
"That team is a mess, and you know the players are wondering what the hell is going on," one NFL veteran who played for Turner in Oakland told me Sunday night. "They're looking to Norv for answers and leadership, and they won't get it. Marty had them on edge, ready to play, and they responded to that. And now this? They're a great team but it's not working, and it's not gonna work."
Sure, it's early, and the Chargers theoretically are a talented enough group to shake off their sketchy start and emerge once again as title contenders. But anyone who thinks this is a minor detour on the way to Glendale, Ariz. is either delusional or a white-haired man with the initials "A.J.S." monogrammed onto his dress shirts.
When LaDainian Tomlinson stares blankly ahead and proclaims that his team is "lost," as the star halfback did during his postgame media conference Sunday, you can bet that he and his teammates privately are questioning the direction of the franchise. How can they not, given that they returned virtually everyone from last year's team that ripped up the league?
It isn't hard to deduce what has changed – Schottenheimer's emotional and relentless leadership style has been replaced by Turner's nervous, detached stewardship. That seemed like a plausible trade if you believed Smith's propaganda: that he'd assembled such a talented team in San Diego it could practically run itself, that a skilled play-caller who stayed out of the way was the ideal choice to coach this star-studded ensemble.
I spent several minutes alone with Tomlinson after the Chargers' 38-14 defeat to the Patriots, and I've seldom seen a superstar so bewildered and deflated after a regular-season game. That LT got into an animated verbal exchange Sunday with Philip Rivers after the quarterback ignored him on a third-down play in the third quarter (instead forcing an incomplete pass to tight end Antonio Gates) is another sign that the pressure is starting to get to the team's most important players.
How did things get so toxic? It started when Chargers owner Dean Spanos, despite what he later would term a "dysfunctional" relationship between Smith and Schottenheimer, stayed flaccid after the playoff defeat, watching helplessly for nearly a month as coordinators Cam Cameron and Wade Phillips got head coaching jobs in Miami and Dallas, respectively. Finally – after Schottenheimer asked to hire his brother, Kurt, as the new defensive coordinator – Spanos fired him and essentially appointed Smith, an accomplished talent evaluator with questionable people skills, as the undisputed king.
Smith's immediate reaction was to consolidate his power. He brought in Ted Cottrell, whom he knew from his days as a Buffalo Bills assistant scouting director, as the defensive coordinator. His prime criteria in hiring Turner, he of the 59-82-1 career record as a head coach, seemed to be, "Obeys Orders And Recognizes My Ultimate Authority."
Smooth move, A.J.
Because Turner is an accomplished offensive coordinator who has a knack for play-calling, Smith, like others before him, got lured into believing Turner could work the same magic as a head coach. This just in: He can't. And some of us have been saying so for a long time.
Talk to Turner's former players, and this is what they'll tell you: Give the man one job, and he'll do that job well. But give him a big job with multiple responsibilities, and he gets anxious and scattered and has a hard time doing any one thing capably.
That's what we're seeing with San Diego's once-mighty offensive attack so far in 2007. The Chargers have been strangely unable to terrorize defenses with Tomlinson's multifaceted talents, and Turner has shown a penchant for disjointed, conservative play calls at key times. This was true on Sunday when San Diego, leading 21-17, had a chance to put away the Packers but seemed to be playing not to lose while failing to produce a key first down. The Chargers were flat-out brutal in the red zone during their season-opening 14-3 victory over the Chicago Bears and were beyond atrocious against the Patriots.
Under Schottenheimer, this team had an obvious offensive mission statement, enunciated by a line that blew teams off the ball and a halfback who worked in tandem by wearing down deflated defenses. So far, San Diego's identity under Turner is that it doesn't have one.
Defensively, the team has struggled with the transition from the ultra-aggressive Phillips to the tamer Cottrell, though injuries on the defensive line have played a role. Most glaring, the secondary has been shredded on numerous occasions, often because the Chargers haven't been where they're supposed to be. That's coaching, pure and simple.
Coverage breakdowns led to Randy Moss running wide open for a touchdown in the Patriots game and other easy completions by Tom Brady. On Sunday, the Packers' winning points came when Brett Favre threw a sweet slant to Greg Jennings on which cornerback Antonio Cromartie was overly aggressive and strong safety Clinton Hart was caught flat-footed and out of position. Jennings caught the pass in stride and raced to a 57-yard touchdown.
The play evoked memories of Troy Aikman's game-clinching pass to Alvin Harper against the 49ers in the '92 NFC championship game, back when Turner was Dallas' boy-wonder offensive coordinator, and before he and the rest of Jimmy Johnson's high-profile assistants (Dave Wannstedt, whose Pitt Panthers lost to Connecticut on Saturday; Dave Campo; Butch Davis) proved largely ineffective once they got a chance to be in charge, most glaringly in the pros.
Beyond strategic concerns there is the motivation issue, one highlighted after the Patriots game when Gates, an All-Pro performer, said San Diego had come out "flat" for its nationally televised showdown with the team that ended its '06 season. Yeah, guys, why get up for that one when that big tilt at Lambeau was looming?
Even Turner's former players who speak highly of him concede that getting the locker room revved up is not his forte.
"I think Norv's a good coach, a good play-caller who had a tough situation from the jump, because that team lost both its coordinators," Raiders wideout Ronald Curry said after Sunday's game. "He can be a little passive at times, but everybody's got a different approach."
Another former Raiders wideout – a guy named Jerry Rice, who before his emergence as a reality-TV dancing star earned some notoriety as the greatest receiver of all time – was even more pointed in an interview last week on Fox Sports Radio. Pulling the Chargers out of their funk, Rice told hosts Andrew Siciliano and Krystal Fernandez, is "going to be up to their head coach. I don't know if Norv Turner can do that because I've played under him, and I don't know if he's going to be able to motivate that team that way."
In fairness, what does Jerry Rice really know about motivation? Oh, wait, that's right: everything.
So how does San Diego fight its way out of this jam? Well, for starters, the people in charge of the franchise need to stop pretending a problem doesn't exist, and to come up with a bold solution to address it.
Is it so outrageous to think that cutting their losses by firing Turner now – and replacing him with inside linebackers coach Ron Rivera, who interviewed for several head coaching jobs (including San Diego's) after his strong showing as the Bears' defensive coordinator the previous three seasons, could save the Chargers' season?
Perhaps, but is that any more outlandish than getting rid of a coach with a 200-126-1 career regular-season record who was coming off a 14-2 campaign and had the unqualified support of Tomlinson, the league MVP and most important presence in the locker room?
Personally, I don't think so. The Chargers' window of opportunity, once perceived to be vast, is closing up like LT's running lanes, and desperate times call for desperate measures. Here's one that Spanos could implement: fire Turner and Cottrell – and Smith, the man responsible for their presence – and bring back Schottenheimer, today, to try to restore the winning edge the coach worked so hard to instill.
Yeah, I know, it sounds kind of crazy. But if you look at the whole picture, the status quo is even crazier.
http://sports.yahoo.com/nfl/news;_ylt=Atz4kIg8qVqsJQqAevAubKJDubYF?slug=ms-morningrush092407&prov=yhoo&type=lgns