More Lightning Strikes in San Diego
You know how lightning never strikes the same place twice? Yeah, that’s just a myth. But not when you’re speaking of the current off season for the San Diego Chargers. Just when I thought things couldn’t get any more arduous for the defending AFC West champs — they did. A few days ago I was talking about how difficult it was going to be for Bolts head coach Marty Schottenheimer to replace four departed assistants, including two coordinators. Well, he won’t need to worry about that anymore as he was fired last night by team president Dean Spanos, who issued the following statement, a stark contrast to his previous show of support for Coach Schottenheimer almost a month ago:
“Today I made an extremely difficult decision: Marty Schottenheimer is no longer the head coach of the San Diego Chargers. This decision was so hard because Marty has been both a friend and valued coach of our team. But my first obligation is always to do what is in the best interest of our fans and the entire Charger organization. I must take whatever steps are necessary to deliver a Super Bowl trophy to San Diego. Events of the last month have now convinced me that it is not possible for our organization to function at a championship level under the current structure. On the contrary, and in the plainest possible language, we have a dysfunctional situation here. Today I am resolving that situation once and for all. My decision means that our organization will be obligated to pay the last year of Marty Schottenheimer’s contract and will begin an intense search for a new head coach at this relatively late date, but these are sacrifices that I believe are necessary to give the Chargers the best possible chance to win on the field this season. Our fans deserve to know what changed for me over the last month. When I decided to move ahead with Marty Schottenheimer in mid-January, I did so with the expectation that the core of his fine coaching staff would remain intact. Unfortunately, that did not prove to be the case, and the process of dealing with these coaching changes convinced me that we simply could not move forward with such dysfunction between our head coach and general manager. In short, this entire process over the last month convinced me beyond any doubt that I had to act to change this untenable situation and create an environment where everyone at Charger Park would be pulling in the same direction and working at a championship level. I expect exactly that from our entire Charger organization in 2007.”
It’s really incredible that a team with the best record last season (14-2) can suddenly be mired in so much turmoil. Unprecedented, really. But, I think the Chargers are better off for a couple reasons. With the contempt between Coach Schottenheimer and GM A.J. Smith, this move just makes sense. It’s very difficult to have this kind of “dysfunctional situation” in a winning organization. The only thing that was really holding the head coach in place were his assistants and, of course, many of them have already left town. Also, I hate to bring it up again, but Coach Schottenheimer’s playoff record (5-13) — it isn’t good. And although it is kind of late to be looking for a head coach, there is still time and plenty of very qualified candidates available, so the Chargers needn’t panic. One wonders, though, if Cam Cameron or Wade Phillips would have taken the San Diego head coaching job over Miami or Dallas respectively. One wonders.
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