More Chargers Post-Marty Firing Thoughts

Published by

Adam Tow

February 13, 2007

Here’s food for thought. Suppose we won this year’s Super Bowl. It’s entirely likely that the same coordinators would have left for the exact same jobs. Phillips to Dallas. Cameron to Miami. Chudzinski to Cleveland. Manusky to San Francisco. The success of the Super Bowl would have given coordinators plenty of opportunities to move on and seek promotions. Would that success be enough to melt the animosity between General Manager AJ Smith and Head Coach Schottenheimer for another year or two or three?

They would still be in a situation where they would have to replace several coordinators. Everything that has happened before would have happened again, and Dean Spanos would have had to deal with the power struggle between AJ Smith and Marty. If they were going to fire him, they should have done it at the end of their meltdown to the Patriots four weeks ago, not now.

What’s going to happen now? Will the new coach want to install a new defensive or offensive scheme? Will they clean house and bring in all of their own coordinators and assistant coaches? Will the players be too strung up to be able to play effectively next season? With this move, Smith and Spanos are effectively saying, “It’s Super Bowl or Bust!” It might have worked for Tampa Bay a few years ago, but will it work for my beloved Chargers?

People have been calling for Pete Carroll to take over the head coaching job. The only way this is going to happen is if he had complete control over personnel. Thus, the only way that Carroll is going to be the Chargers head coach is if Spanos fires AJ Smith!

7 responses to “More Chargers Post-Marty Firing Thoughts”

syndromes

February 13, 2007

It’s all speculation what they would’ve done had the Chargers won the Superbowl, although it would be quite unprecedented to fire a winning Superbowl head coach I would imagine haha ;)

Bottom line is Marty has no idea how to win in the post season. He has a 5 and 13 record! He’s made it to the conference final 3 times – the last of which was 14 years ago! I was annoyed when they hired him for this exact reason and although i’m a bit surprised they fired him after a 14-2 season with just a year left on his contract, i’m not at all disappointed in the move. Marty has never been able to produce post season, so onto bigger and better things I say.

I doubt we’ll see another 14-2 next year, but i’d be willing to trade it for a 10-6 season and a conference final, that’s for sure.

Reply
Adam Tow

February 13, 2007

Tony Dungy wasn’t able to win in the postseason as well, and look what he did this season? Bill Cowher couldn’t win the ring until two seasons ago, and look what he was able to do. For Marty, I firmly believe that it was the law of averages. Sooner or later, give him some more shots and he would have gotten the job done. This season, it wasn’t his fault that Florence head-butted the Patriot player or McCree didn’t drop to the ground after getting the interception. Argh.

Reply
syndromes

February 13, 2007

Both of their post season records are also better than .500, so despite having never won Superbowls before, at least they could be considered competitive in the post season. Marty? Not so much. Maybe you’re right and eventually he’d get his win, but what does that say about his coaching ability?

I would argue that Florence head-butting someone, Olshansky losing his cool, Jackson celebrating a reception by spiking the ball and it luckily being ruled an illegal forward pass instead of a fumble and McCree not dropping to the ground are all attributable in some way to the coaching, and ultimately Schotty. I’ll also give him his due for the terrific season LT had as well as their regular season record. But along with that comes the responsibility of living up to that record during post season. If it were an aberration in his post season record, i’d be all for giving him further opportunities, but I think it’s hard to make the case that he deserved more chances to win when his record shows he just hasn’t produced in the post season for a long, long time.

But that’s just my opinion :) What do I know – I would’ve fired Cowher a long time ago haha ;)

Reply
Jim

February 13, 2007

Not only is AJ Smith a control freak, but Spanos doesn’t seem to understand football. You’ve got to be a dope to not realize that on a 14-2 team, you’re going to lose a good chunk of your staff. The statement about firing Marty only after losing so many coaches is just ignorant. Sounds like a broken system over there. The problem is, they’re not going to get anyone of quality wanting to step into what sounds like an Al Davis-esque situation.

Here’s a dark horse hiring: Steve Mariuchi. The team is already solid. The only real development needed is in turning Philip Rivers into a consistent, mature QB. Steve is great with QBs (Favre, Garcia), so it might be a good fit.

Reply
Bryan

February 13, 2007

Another question is how would the team have done if AJ Smith didn’t insist on standing by ‘his guy’, Phillip Rivers and instead the Chargers kept Drew Brees? Rivers is decent and has some potential, but you are talking the difference between a game manager (Rivers) and a real QB (Brees). Just strange to get rid of the QB who is much better right now and then say you want to win now? Clearly Smith’s ego was involved.

Reply
Jim

February 19, 2007

The Turner Era has begun.
http://sports.yahoo.com/nfl/news;_ylt=Ah9lEU86QN_gF6RED6p8D6RDubYF?slug=ap-chargers-turner&prov=ap&type=lgns

Reply
Adam

February 19, 2007

So I’ve heard :( I would have liked to have seen Rex Ryan get the job. I’m not all that enthused next year, given Turner’s previous head coaching gigs.

Reply

Adam, here

Welcome to tow.com, my home on the internet since 1995. I’m an indie software artist and creator of apps such as MixEffect, MsgFiler, AlbumFiler, Wipe My Screen, and more. I’m also the producer and co-director of Autumn Gem. Enjoy your visit here!