Let me apologize in advance to my loyal readers who aren't sports fans. I rarely subject you to a sports-related blog. I can't help myself today though. All evening and into this morning all the football pundits were asking how the San Diego "super" Chargers who were 14-2 last year could possibly be 1-3 this year.
I thought the answer was obvious, but no one seems to be talking about it: Norv Turner is the worst head coach in the NFL in the last 20 years to have received multiple head coaching opportunities. Norv was my beloved Skins head coach from '94 through most of the 2000 season. During that time period the Redskins found a way to (as Chris Berman used to say of those tricky Bengals) "snatch defeat from the jaws of victory". Seriously. Go back and think about how many close games the Redskins lost. They always found a way. Over time I noticed that Norv Turner-led teams lack accountability. No one ever stands up and accepts responsibility for something going wrong. I remember a game where Brad Johnson threw 5 interceptions AND had a fumble and he talked about turnovers as if they were everyone else's fault. Certainly they weren't 100% his fault, but as the leader of the team you need to own up to stuff. Norv never has those kinds of teams. They lack discipline.
Norv is seemingly a good offensive coordinator. That's why he keeps getting these head coaching jobs. He was the offensive coordinator in Dallas before getting the Skins job. Then he was in SD and Miami before going to be the Raiders head coach. Then he was the 9ers offensive coordinator before going back to SD to be their head coach. When he went to Oakland my uncle (who is a sports writer in the Bay) called to ask me what I thought. I told him that the only fact he needed to know was that in almost 7 full season as the Redskins' head coach he had a losing record against every team in the division INCLUDING THE ARIZONA CARDINALS! The Cardinals (for those of you who don't follow football) are one of those teams that have a culture for losing. They have an owner who has historically not cared. They're the Washington Generals of the NFL if you will (at least in the 90s along with the Bengals). And Norv lost to them!
If good coaches put their players in position to make plays (old cliche) Norv puts his players in position to blame problems on each other. Sure enough on the sideline yesterday LT yelled at Rivers.
So, you add all of this up and is it surprising that the Chargers aren't playing well? I can't imagine why AJ Smith (Chargers GM), with a team this good would hire Norv Turner to coach his team. Unless he went Mel Brooks on everyone a la The Producers and decided that he WANTED his team to lose. Because then this would make perfect sense.
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