Whitlock - Marty loses super opportunity

[C-Mac]

Marty loses super opportunity
JASON WHITLOCK
The Kansas City Star

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Marty Schottenheimer isn’t likely to shed any tears over the unfairness of his dismissal as head coach of the San Diego Chargers.

Marty knows, better than most, that professional football is rarely fair.

So he’ll take his 200 victories and his 14-2 2006 regular-season record, and look for his next coaching opportunity without making much of a stink about Chargers general manager A.J. Smith dictating coaching decisions.

Nope. What will bring Marty to tears for the foreseeable future is the realization that he left another coach a Super Bowl-ready team. At age 63, Marty, in all likelihood, sabotaged his last and best chance to win a Super Bowl by attempting to hire his brother, Kurt, as defensive coordinator of the Chargers.

According to published reports in San Diego, Marty’s insistence on interviewing his brother to replace Wade Phillips pushed team president Dean Spanos to grant Smith’s wish of canning Marty.

Given Marty’s 2007 lame-duck status, it sort of made sense for Marty to want to fill his five-coaches-raided staff with people he could trust, people willing to walk the plank with Marty after the 2007 season. Going into the final year of his contract, who could Marty trust more than his brother, a man who owes his entire coaching career to Marty?

And given Marty’s hostile relationship with Smith, who beyond Kurt would be willing to join Marty in San Diego’s dysfunction?

This is going to haunt Marty Schottenheimer more than The Drive, The Fumble, Lin Elliott and Rich Gannon.

Marty coached very good teams in Cleveland and Kansas City, teams that could’ve won Super Bowls with the right breaks. In San Diego, Marty coached the league’s best team, a squad that should’ve won the Super Bowl.

Now someone else will get to direct LaDainian Tomlinson and Shawne Merriman, the league’s most dominating offensive and defensive players. Now someone else will finish what Marty started.

The Chargers are sitting in the same spot as the Tampa Bay Buccaneers five years ago after dismissing Tony Dungy. The Bucs had a veteran, ascending team ready to win a championship. They couldn’t afford to hire an unproven head coach. They needed a coach who could win now. They gave up a fortune to get Jon Gruden. He immediately took Tampa to the Super Bowl.

Who is that coach for the Chargers?

It’s complicated now because of the late date of Marty’s firing. Will the new coach have time to assemble a high-quality staff? The Chargers lost their offensive and defensive coordinators (Cam Cameron and Wade Phillips) earlier in the offseason.

The Chargers should think outside the box. I’d try to lure Dick Vermeil out of retirement for one year and pair him with Mike Singletary or Ron Rivera or Jim Caldwell or some other ascending assistant coach.

It would be a mistake to turn this team over to an inexperienced head coach. Has a rookie head coach ever won the Super Bowl? The goal in San Diego is to win Super Bowl XLII. A rookie or a well-traveled retread (Norv Turner) is unlikely to get the Chargers where they need to go in the AFC, which is home to the Colts, Patriots, Ravens, Steelers, Bengals and Jaguars, teams with enough talent to win it all.

The Colts, Patriots and Ravens are all led by previous Super Bowl winners.

What is next for Marty?

He won’t experience the same fate as Dungy, who quickly landed a dream gig with Peyton Manning, the league’s best quarterback, and Bill Polian, the league’s best general manager.

Dungy’s ego allows him to work for a control-freak GM. Dungy is content coaching and letting Polian handle personnel. Marty doesn’t work that way. Marty wants ultimate authority. He and Carl Peterson tangled over personnel.

Marty will land another coaching job. But he’ll never coach another team as talented as the one he leaves behind in San Diego. Monday’s events all but ensure that Marty Schottenheimer will never win a Super Bowl.

[Brock]

Originally Posted by BIG_DADDY

Right. All you had to do was look at SD's last game to see how many chances that team had to win and how time after time players failed to execute or do something stupid.

Yeah, it's always something, isn't it? That 5-13 playoff record and not one playoff win in 13 years, is just an amazing freaking coincidence.

[CoMoChief]

Great Oline

Promising QB who will only get better

Best RB/FB combo in NFL

Best TE in NFL

WR's could be better but as KC has shown, you have a Gates or Gonzalez with a great running game you don't need a true #1WR.

Great 3-4 Dline including the best (or top 3) DT in the NFL.

Best overall defensive player in NFL.

Good surrounding LB core.

Secondary could use some work.

If the Chargers focus on WR's and the secondary this offseason they could go a long ways. If I were them I would try and get Nate Clements. Perhaps trade up to get Dwayne Jarrett depending on what he does at the combine. SD has some room the trade up this season. SD has most of the starters locked up for another few seasons. AJ Smith was reeruned for keeping Marty as long as he did this off season. Cam Cameron would have been the perfect candidate for the job. SD had a very good offense and you don't fix what's not broken (cough cough Herm, cough).

[Baby Lee]

Originally Posted by keg in kc

What I like best is when you see folks bitching about Carl, the Hunts, the whole franchise, how they're so focused on filling the seats rather than winning, and point at the fact that we haven't won a playoff game in over a decade as proof. And then these very same people will turn around and talk about how great Marty is.

Good fun!

This is like being married to Roseanne Barr, and bitching about some period when she was relatively fit and attractive. Ooh, she wasn't Carmen Electra. Well, the rest of the time you've been married to a fat slob.

[htismaqe]

Originally Posted by Baby Lee

This is like being married to Roseanne Barr, and bitching about some period when she was relatively fit and attractive. Ooh, she wasn't Carmen Electra. Well, the rest of the time you've been married to a fat slob.

Some of us would have never married Rosanne Barr in the first place, even if we had known that she'd be hot for a short period.

[Baby Lee]

Originally Posted by htismaqe

Some of us would have never married Rosanne Barr in the first place, even if we had known that she'd be hot for a short period.

You do realize that in my analogy; Married to Roseanne = Being a Chiefs fan?

[htismaqe]

Originally Posted by Baby Lee

You do realize that in my analogy; Married to Roseanne = Being a Chiefs fan?

Yes, I misworded my response.

Some of us WISH we would have never married Rosanne Barr...

[Chiefs Pantalones]

Originally Posted by keg in kc

What I like best is when you see folks bitching about Carl, the Hunts, the whole franchise, how they're so focused on filling the seats rather than winning, and point at the fact that we haven't won a playoff game in over a decade as proof. And then these very same people will turn around and talk about how great Marty is.

Good fun!

What I like best is these same people you're describing are the same people that have season tickets. If you don't like what the team is doing or what direction they're heading (constant mediocrity in the Chiefs case) the best way to let the organization know is to drop your season tickets if you have them. Why pay for a loser? I'm a fan, but that doesn't make me less of one because I don't have season tickets. Although, according to Carl, it does.

[Brock]

Originally Posted by Baby Lee

You do realize that in my analogy; Married to Roseanne = Being a Chiefs fan?

At least the bitch stopped making promises she couldn't keep. Some guys are just masochists I guess.

[htismaqe]

Originally Posted by Baby Lee

You do realize that in my analogy; Married to Roseanne = Being a Chiefs fan?

By the way, I assume in your analogy the "period when she was relatively fit and attractive" was the years when Marty was coach.

I would remind you that even when she was fit and attractive, she was still Rosanne Barr - loud and annoying, as always.

[Baby Lee]

Originally Posted by htismaqe

By the way, I assume in your analogy the "period when she was relatively fit and attractive" was the years when Marty was coach.

I would remind you that even when she was fit and attractive, she was still Rosanne Barr - loud and annoying, as always.

I guess it's just a matter of perspective, if a Patriots Fan [One Mr. Brad Pitt-Jolie] said Marty was subpar, I'd have to shrug and concede. But when a Chiefs fan says it, my response is 'well that's as good as you/us guys have ever had it.'

[htismaqe]

Originally Posted by Baby Lee

I guess it's just a matter of perspective, if a Patriots Fan [One Mr. Brad Pitt-Jolie] said Marty was subpar, I'd have to shrug and concede. But when a Chiefs fan says it, my response is 'well that's as good as you/us guys have ever had it.'

If one lived in a vacuum, or was a defeatist, that would be perfectly valid. But it doesn't matter if that's as good as we've ever had it. We've already seen better, with other teams.

[keg in kc]

Originally Posted by Baby Lee

I guess it's just a matter of perspective, if a Patriots Fan [One Mr. Brad Pitt-Jolie] said Marty was subpar, I'd have to shrug and concede. But when a Chiefs fan says it, my response is 'well that's as good as you/us guys have ever had it.'

That's sort of like when you really want a steak, but all you have is a can of spam. So you settle for the spam. It might even taste okay if you're hungry enough, but at the end of the day it's still just spam.

And someone, somewhere, is eating your steak. And laughing.




I don't really know what all that means, but it sounded interesting.

[htismaqe]

That week you slept in a cardboard box was FAR superior to the rest of your life sleeping in a doorway and getting stepped on.

You should be thankful for that box, and shame on you for wishing that you had an apartment.

[Baby Lee]

Originally Posted by htismaqe

That week you slept in a cardboard box was FAR superior to the rest of your life sleeping in a doorway and getting stepped on.

You should be thankful for that box, and shame on you for wishing that you had an apartment.

I think you're extending the metaphor too far. More like, you should be ashamed of the home you bought and paid for and raised your family in, because it's possible to own a Central Park West Penthouse Condo [others have done it], so I'm glad I left my home and family to walk the earth homeless like Caine in Kung Fu.

[Brock]

Originally Posted by htismaqe

That week you slept in a cardboard box was FAR superior to the rest of your life sleeping in a doorway and getting stepped on.

You should be thankful for that box, and shame on you for wishing that you had an apartment.

My wife stopped giving me fiery cases of gonorhea, now she just refuses to have sex with me. You don't know what you got until it's gone.