Norv Done, Who's Next?

Late tonight I saw the announcement by Dean Spanos that Norv Turner and GM A.J. Smith was released.  Smith was a little surprising to me.  Although a lot of fans disliked Smith, he was widely considered a good judge of football talent.  During his tenure over the last 10 seasons, Smith brought 15 players to San Diego that made the Pro Bowl, the most in the NFL over that time.  The problem with Smith was his hard line stance on contract negotiations.  His tough tactics led to hold outs by TE Antonio Gates, WR Vincent Jackson, and LT Marcus McNeill. In the end, all three signed, but likely left those players a little bitter.  My personal big grip with Smith is that he never put together a solid offensive line...never put obtaining an O-lineman as a priority even though the line was in shambles seemingly every season. 

As for Turner, his time in San Diego was already in jeopardy before notching a 7-9 record this season.  It may have been his only losing season as coach of the Chargers, but under his guidance the Chargers have underachieved (with the exception of his 1st when SD went to the AFC Championship game and lost to the Pats).

So who's up next?

According to the Chargers official website, they are not releasing names of possible candidates because some of them are still employed by NFL teams participating in the playoffs. Hmmm, that makes a short list of possibilities.  I'm assuming that the Head Coaches of the playoff teams are returning to their respective clubs next season.  The Chargers website also mentioned that Spanos brought in a team to help with the hiring process.  One member of that team is former Packer GM Ron Wolf.  I hope that doesn't influence them into hiring Packers' DC Dom Capers because he sucked as a Head Coach....ditto for Jack Del Rio (Broncos' DC), Mike Nolan (Falcons' DC), Jim Haslett (Redskins' DC), Wade Phillips (Texans' DC), and Josh McDaniels (Pats' OC).

The one other coordinator that has previous head coaching experience is Cam Cameron, who was HC for the Dolphins for one season (2007).  The Dolphins went 1-15 that year.  That doesn't look good on the resume, but Cameron has done well as OC for the Ravens over the last five seasons and he was OC for the Chargers from 2002-06.  That makes him familiar territory for Spanos.  I would rather the Chargers go after someone new.  As I said in my last post, the Chargers need an attitude adjustment and familiarity won't get them there. 

My hope is that they go after Bruce Arians, OC for the Colts, who did an excellent job with them when Chuck Pagano had to leave when diagnosed with leukemia.  Arians will get a HC job next year and will likely get to pick where he wants to go.  Along with San Diego, Chicago, Buffalo, Kansas City, Cleveland, Philadelphia, and Arizona are hiring.  The most talent probably is in Chicago, with SD a close 2nd, but where would you rather live?

2013 NFL Playoffs

The playoffs are here and my favorite team, the San Diego Chargers, underachieved and missed the playoffs...again.  That's three straight seasons.  There needs to be a change in SD...and it has to be a mindset change.  A new coach has to come in and inject a new atmosphere, a new mindset. Just got done reading an article on USA Today (Who's out?) that was tracking the coach and GM firings and was disappointed that Norv Turner wasn't mentioned...yet. Turner didn't work out, time to give someone else a shot.

Enough about the Chargers (for now), how about the story lines for this years playoffs!

Three starting rookie QBs take their respective teams to the playoffs.  Two will face each other this weekend when Russel Wilson takes the Seahawks into D.C. to face Robert Griffin.  Speaking of RG3, did you see that the Redskins lead the league in fewest turnovers and RG3 has the fewest turnovers of any QB starting more than half the season?  Rookies aren't supposed to do that.

The Bench Seat

I recently read an article called "Benched, The End of an Era" about the bench seat going away as an option.  The author, Larry Jewett, said he was the owner of a 2003 Buick Century with a bench seat and that, with the arrival of the new 2014 Chevy Impala, the last automobile with the bench seat as an option is going away.

Really, there was a car offered with a bench seat in 2013?  You could actually buy a car in 2003 with a bench seat in it?  Wow, I thought the bench seat had died a long time ago.  The last vehicle I had with a bench seat was a 1989 Ford Ranger with the split-bench.  I can't remember another car  since the 1994-1996 Chevy Impala / Buick Roadmaster with a bench seat in it (Although a land yacht, I still think the 94-96 Impala SS is a cool car).

I have to admit that there's some nostalgia lost with the bench going away.  I remember going out on dates with my Mom's 1970 Maverick with the column shift and a bench seat. I also had a 1978 F150 that had a bench.  One of the many things that young adults will never experience with their cars and therefore never bond with their vehicles like my generation did. 

There's a sort of symbolism there...no more bench seat and the world gets that much farther apart.

Merry Christmas

So what crazy person would start a blog on Christmas Eve?

I had started two other blogs in the past, the first was called "All I Learned About Life I Learned From Poker."  It was about how I could use a Poker analogy for just about any life situation I had run into over the course of my life.  Seriously, during the course of an all night Poker game you can learn everything you need to learn about life.  The problem is you won't realize it until much, much later.  I loved that Blog, but let it slip into internet oblivion. 

The second was called "One Fans View on Sports," which turned into "Two Fans Views on Sports" when a long time friend started to post articles on it.  Bulldog, who now hosts a blog called "Nothing If Not Random," was inadvertently a big influence on me starting this blog.  About a year ago I was in the middle of a divorce after 25 years of marriage.  I didn't feel like doing much of anything, let alone post on a Sports Blog.  I never felt that kind of pain in my gut before...it was worse than getting kicked in the nuts.  Maybe not as physically painful, but it was like it was eating at you from the inside out. Anyway I just deleted the blog as part of just purging everything.

Last week I got an early Christmas gift from Bulldog, a book titled "The Book of Basketball" by Bill Simmons.  I don't know how else to describe it except that he writes like a sports fan.  It's not how a sportscaster or author or an author-sportscaster would write a book...it's like a fan would write it and that's what makes it a great read.  In parts, he writes about his experiences/memories of historic moments in Basketball...what he was thinking/feeling at the time.  Immediately, I though, "Shit, I should have never deleted that blog."  That blog had posts in it that I had made while watching my favorite b-ball team, the Spurs win their 4th championship.  There were post about how I felt after watching LeBron James incredible performance in the double overtime Game 5 in Detroit.  Then posts after each victory of the Spurs sweep of the Cavs in the Finals.  I would have loved to go back and read what I wrote.  Almost every historic sporting event over the last seven years or so was posted about on that blog.  Every major event for my favorite sports teams was posted about on that blog...excited posts about the Kansas Jayhawks basketball team winning the National Championship in 2007.  Disheartened posts after the San Diego Chargers lost to the Patriots in the AFC Championship game earlier that same year.

Why, oh why, did I delete it (slaps forehead with palm of hand)!