ChiefsPlanet - GRETZ: Thanks Chargers!

GRETZ: Thanks Chargers!
Feb 14, 2007, 5:35:52 AM by Bob Gretz - FAQ

On this day that celebrates love, Chiefs fans everywhere should send a nice note of thanks, appreciation and devotion to one Dean Spanos, the man who runs the San Diego Chargers.

Spanos made the Chiefs job in the AFC West just a little bit easier in 2007 by firing Marty Schottenheimer as his head coach late Monday night. The move was a surprise, coming just weeks after Spanos announced that Schottenheimer would return for the next season, the final year of Marty’s contract with the Bolts.

One of the few ways that the Chargers could be brought back to rest of the pack in the AFC West after their 14-2 season was injury or implosion from within. Injury is still possible. The implosion happened with the firing of Schottenheimer.

Spanos is not a bumbler and fumbler, but he sure comes out looking like one with this move, especially the timing of the decision. That he picked his general manager A.J. Smith over Marty and came as no surprise to anyone in the league, including Schottenheimer. Smith and Schottenheimer had gotten into a personal situation where they did not communicate directly. The GM didn’t like some of the decisions by the head coach. The head coach felt the same way about the GM’s meddlesome nature into areas that are traditionally the province of the head coach.

OK, two guys don’t get along, then change the equation. After losing to the Patriots in the playoffs, Spanos had that chance to do that. Then, either defensive coordinator Wade Phillips or offensive coordinator Cam Cameron would have been promoted to the head coaching position. Instead, those guys are now head coaches elsewhere in the NFL, Schottenheimer is gone and the Chargers are now on a search to find their next leader and his two coordinators.

Let’s review the leadership that Schottenheimer brought to the Chargers, once one of the NFL’s saddest franchises:

San Diego in five years under Schottenheimer (2002-06) had a 47-35, a winning percentage of .573. That includes two division titles.
The Chargers in the previous five years under three head coaches (1997-2001) were 23-57, a winning percentage of .288. In four of those five seasons they finished last in the AFC West.
Spanos said the decision to fire Schottenheimer was because “we have a dysfunctional situation here. Today I am resolving that situation once and for all.”

Not quite. All he did was fire the head coach, as if Schottenheimer was the whole problem. He may wake up a year from now and find out that his general manager provided the dysfunction in his building. Spanos said he changed his mind after Schottenheimer and Smith clashed over the rebuilding of the Chargers coaching staff which lost four assistants to new jobs, two becoming head coaches and two others becoming coordinators, including former Chiefs linebacker Greg Manusky, now the new defensive coordinator in San Francisco.

Rather than listening only to the words his GM was whispering in his ear, Spanos should have taken a look around the NFL. If anybody knows how to hire top-notch coaches it is Marty Schottenheimer. There’s Tony Dungy, holding the Vince Lombardi Trophy: a former Marty assistant. The guy holding it last year was Bill Cowher, a Schottenheimer protégé. One of the two teams that beat the Chargers this past year was directed by another former Marty assistant, the Chiefs’ Herm Edwards. Mike McCarthy did a fine job in his first year as head coach in Green Bay. Yes, another former Marty assistant. Up in New York, they were raving about the abilities that young Brian Schottenheimer brought to the Jets as offensive coordinator, the connection there being obvious. The new offensive coordinator of the Steelers is Bruce Arians. Marty gave him his first NFL coaching job with the Chiefs back in 1989. He’s been in the league ever since and will now direct the development of the Pittsburgh offense and quarterback Ben Roethlisberger. There are others, including a host of former players like Manusky, who are just getting their feet wet in coaching.

Despite the defections from his Chargers staff, Schottenheimer would have put together a very good coaching staff and with its talent, San Diego would have been a contender again.

And maybe they will anyway. But now we must wait and see who Smith pulls out of the coaching box. All those Marty bashers will point to his poor post-season record and say this move is no big deal. They would be wrong. Schottenheimer is one of the best coaches to ever work in the NFL. Any Chiefs fan that watched the team during the 1990s knows what he was able to do. Schottenheimer and Carl Peterson turned around the entire franchise.

He did the same in San Diego.

So Chiefs fans, send some flowers, candy or at least a thank you card to San Diego and the men who run the franchise out there.

They just brought the Chargers back to earth.