"Turning in the Wrong Direction" Orange Outlook, January 2007

When the Arizona Cardinals fired Dennis Green last January, the team said they were rebuilding. So what were the San Diego Chargers doing when they fired Marty Schottenheimer? Deconstructing?

Schottenheimer, coming off a 14-2 season, has a 200-136-1 career record. In the past five years, he has coached the Chargers to a 47-33 mark. The only knock on him is that he can’t win playoff games. In fact, the last time he recorded a playoff victory, the President was contemplating what to do about the attack on the World Trade Center. Keep in mind that the president then was Clinton.

So if Schottenheimer’s 5-13 playoff record was the reason that the Chargers fired him, they did the right thing. Because, if you can be sure of one thing about their new coach, it’s this: He certainly won’t lose any playoff games.

Norv Turner is their new coach, and while he might not have the career accolades that Schottenheimer does, there are many things impressive about him, too. For instance, no one else has ever been rewarded with such a highly coveted job after coaching as poorly as he has for so many years.

Of course with a team like the Chargers, an average coach could get them into the playoffs no problem and win at least one game, so what’s the worry? See, Turner isn’t exactly average. Average is 50%. Turner is 38% (58-82-1 career record).

I have a hard time seeing how this coaching change will work. After all, Schottenheimer did go 12-4 in 2004 and 9-7 in ’05 with Drew Brees at quarterback, then 14-2 in his first season with Phillip Rivers starting. General Manager A.J. Smith must have liked what he saw, because he gave Marty a quick Schott in the back and boot out the door following the season—well, not quite; he waited until every other head coaching vacancy was filled and until the Chargers had lost their two coordinators and two assistants to other teams.

Then he used the fact that all the assistants left against Schottenheimer in the press conference. (Take a break here because the lack of logic coming up might get confusing.) The general manager is mad at the coach because four assistants left the coaching staff. The GM is in charge of hiring all the coaches and giving them permission to seek jobs with other teams. He’s also apparently in charge of finding scapegoats.

Now after blaming his mistake on Schottenheimer, A.J. Smith proposes a pragmatic solution to the problem. If four assistant coaches left, the best way to combat the problem is to fire another coach. I’ll let John Madden explain the logic behind that because I sure can’t.

The questions at the beginning of Smith’s press conference on the firing started off kind of tame, like, “What kind of an idiot are you, firing Schottenheimer after a 14-2 season?” but by the time Smith had explained his reasoning, they changed to “How does an idiot like you get a general manager job? Can I get one?”

Allow me to cut through the rhetoric. Schottenheimer was fired for the same reason that Jerry Jones fired Jimmy Johnson after two Super Bowl wins in 1993. Ever since Smith took the job in ’03 Schottenheimer there was always tension between the two because both were so power hungry. As Schotty said after the affair, “We’ve never been on speaking terms.”

If Smith had a good candidate in mind for head coach and had reason to believe that his strained relationship with Schott was hurting the team, than it would make sense to fire him, but I can hardly see how a 35-13 record over three years is evidence of chemistry problems. They had been winning together for three years, then, after the hiring season had ended, no less, Smith decided to pull the plug. He could have at least fired him early so that he could have promoted offensive coordinator Cam Cameron to the head job.

Cameron has helped turn the voltage up for this Chargers offense that has ranked among the top five in each of the last three seasons. He and Schottenheimer turned Phillip Rivers into a top ten quarterback in just his first year starting. Schotteneheimer has a long history of QB success including Bernie Kosar and Rich Gannon, along with Brees and Rivers. (Heck, he even got good quarterback play out of the running back position with Ladainian Tomlinson.)

Turner, on the other hand, can’t tell a quarterback from loose change. When someone mentions the hail mary to him, he goes to church. That is, until he realizes that it involves a deep bomb then he runs for cover. He once joined the NRA to improve his shotgun formation. The alleged “quarterbacks” he has produced include Alex Smith, Jay Fiedler, Gus Frerote, and Jeff George. Donovan McNabb’s projectile vomit looks prettier than those guys’ passes.

You have to cut the guy some slack, though. The Chargers weren’t that great of a team is 2001 when he helped them finish 5-11 as offensive coordinator. He wasn’t the one who signed a near-retirement Doug Flutie onto the team, who combined with a young Brees, to throw 16 touchdowns and 18 interceptions. He did inherit a pretty bad Raiders team in 2004, and after the job he did with them, he has some hope that the Chargers don’t finish dead last in the division next season.

This is the first year that he has taken over a team that was already good, and you can be sure it will be the last year that they are good.

Briefs

Rush Limbaugh Knows Why Bears Lost Super Bowl

“The only reason why people are bashing Rex Grossman is because he is a white quarterback,” Rush said on his show. It had nothing to do with Grossman’s three turnovers. Limbaugh first gained fame as a football commentator when he figured that Donovan McNabb was overrated because he was a black quarterback. He was fired for that just a few weeks into his first football analysis job, so he had to make his Super Bowl 41 commentary on his radio show.

Michael Irvin Also Makes a Fool of Himself

ESPN didn’t exercise Irvin’s option as an analysis because Irvin was trying to find a better deal elsewhere. Well, no one else wants him, so now he has no job. Millions of football fans rejoice because now ESPN’s football programming is somewhat viewable. Irvin can be just as racist as Limbaugh (who isn’t really racist at all, but just completely idiotic) as evidenced in his rant earlier this season on how Cowboys QB Tony Romo has to have some black blood in him.

If ESPN needs a replacement, they should look at Ricky Williams. Like, Irvin, he is a retired drug addict.

Vegas Showcases Itself as an NBA City

Sacramento Kings owners George and Gavin Maloof were hoping to establish a team in Las Vegas where they own one of the cities hottest clubs and hotels. They thought that All-Star Weekend, hosted in Las Vegas, would be a great time to showcase the city’s potential. As it was, they were just happy to get out alive.

A total of 403 people were arrested over the week, 56% of them from out of town. Three people are in critical condition due to gun wounds.

Sheriff Doug Gillespie said that, “The prescence of police officers was very instrumental in keeping this event safe.”

How safe was it?

Four people were shot in two separate gunfights at post-game parties. I don’t know what Mr. Gillespie’s definition of safe is, but that doesn’t sound safe to me.

One of the stars of the Thugfest was Titans cornerback Pacman Jones. Jones, already famous for his weekly Tennessee bar fights, entered a strip club and tossed money up to some strippers who grabbed for it. Jones then punched one stripper in the face and slammed her onto the ground. That was a justified reaction, says Jones, because the money he threw up into the air was for “visual effects only.”

After assaulting the stripper, security guards came after Jones’ posse, and one of Jones’ friends shot and paralyzed a guard.

With Pacman Jones highlighting the NFL’s crime problem, the Player’s Association is thinking about policing themselves with a three strikes program. I like the idea of the NFL policing itself. Sean Taylor would sure scare Pacman by pulling a gun on him like he did to some people in ’05, who he thought stole his ATVs.

John Amaechi Says He’s Gay; Tim Hardaway Says He Hates Him

Jeff Garcia has had his time to shine as an example of homosexuality in sports (even though he’s not a real homosexual). Now, it’s John Amaechi’s turn. Amaechi’s admission that he is gay is a real step forward for gays in pro sports. It says to homosexuals everywhere, “It’s okay to be gay as long as you can make money by writing a book about it.”

With the homophobic attitude in pro sports, it was no surprise when Tim Hardaway lashed out on a radio show saying that hated gays and that homosexuality shouldn’t be allowed in the United States.

LeBron James also got his two cents in: “We take shower’s together…If you’re in the closet, it’s like lying to us.” To paraphrase, you’re a liar if you don’t tell LeBron that you’re gay, but if you are, he won’t shower with you.

Hall of Fame To McDonalds: “No Big Mac”

That’s the nickname Mark McGwire goes by. He was denied admission into the Hall in their January vote, receiving less than 40% of the vote. 75% is needed for entrance. Guess the voters just weren’t thinking about the past when they cast their ballots. Or maybe they were and they remembered the stories published in the N.Y. Daily News about Big Mac taking steroids.

Despite that, he deserves Hall entrance for outplaying a bunch of other juicers. By most estimates, roid use is 30-50% in MLB, and McGwire needed to be good to out-slam other synthetically strong sluggers. If MLB were clean, the only difference would have been that Big Mac might have beaten Sosa 60-56 in ’98 instead of 70-66.

A-Rod and Jeter Get Their Feud On—But A-Rod Might Have Been Lying

Alex Rodriguez started out his meeting with the New York media this February by saying “Don’t ask me about Jeter, and I won’t lie to you again.” No one laughed. Typical New York media scene. He should have followed Drew Rosenhaus’ example of stellar player-vs.-player feud management when he responded to questions about T.O.’s turmoil with McNabb by saying “Next question.”

Manny Wants to be in the News, Too

Manny Ramirez made headlines just by showing up to spring training on time. Usually, he’s at least a week late. His explanation? “I was just Manny being Manny.” That has become the explanation for anything Manny has done in the past few years. It has worked very well for him, and other people should try it. Pacman Jones inciting a riot at a strip club during NBA All-Star game weekend? “It was just Pacman being Pacman.” Charges dropped. McGwire’s steroid use? “It was just Big Mac being Big Mac?” Well that all makes sense now. You can do anything just by invoking that clause.