After five seasons as head coach of the San Diego Chargers, Norv Turner was fired after leading the Chargers to a 7-9 campaign this season. Early on in his stint with the team, Turner seemed an unfit successor of former coach Marty Schottenheimer, who led the 2006 Chargers to a 14-2 season and the No. 1 seed in the AFC.
However, Turner regained credibility in the 2008 season as he turned his 4-8 team into division champs by winning the final four games of the season, including a 52-21 drubbing of the rival Denver Broncos to clinch the division on the final day of the regular season. But the Chargers have not been back to the playoffs since 2009, which is completely unacceptable when Tim Tebow is a starting quarterback in the division. However, his performance did give Turner a few more seasons to deliver what President Dean Spanos and General Manager A.J. Smith expected: a Super Bowl title. Ultimately, after the Chargers’ dismal performance this season, including a blown 24-point halftime lead to quarterback Peyton Manning and the Denver Broncos and losses to the Cleveland Browns and Carolina Panthers, both Turner and Smith were fired, leaving significant positions for Spanos to fill.
In an off-season consisting of eight teams firing their head coaches, much talk was made about which teams would hire which coaches. The Chargers landed former Denver Broncos offensive coordinator Mike McCoy. Chargers.com managing editor Ricky Henne said McCoy was “considered the hottest candidate on the market (who would) usher in a new era of Chargers football in 2013.”
McCoy first made a splash as the offensive assistant of the Carolina Panthers in 2000 and was a part of the Panthers team, which reached the Super Bowl in 2004 only to lose on a last-second field goal to Tom Brady and the New England Patriots.
After leaving the Panthers in 2009, McCoy became the offensive coordinator of the Denver Broncos, which Henne said “was a role he thrived in up until Tuesday when he accepted the Chargers position to be head coach.”
McCoy headed the Broncos offensive attack that led the team to a 13-3 record and an AFC West championship in 2012. Despite many believing the offensive success of the Broncos was largely because of Manning, McCoy separated himself from the likes of Lovie Smith, the former Chicago Bears head coach who took the team to the Super Bowl; and Ken Whisenhut, who took the Arizona Cardinals to a Super Bowl as well. McCoy in his excitement of becoming the new Chargers head coach said, “seeing the great history and tradition here; it’s an opportunity of a lifetime and I’m planning on making the most of it.”
McCoy’s first big move as head coach was hiring Whisenhunt as the team’s new offensive coordinator. Whisenhunt has a Super Bowl ring from 2006 while he was with the Steelers, and led the Cardinals to back-to-back playoff appearances and a Super Bowl appearance with Kurt Warner as his quarterback. According to USA Today, the idea of working with Philip Rivers sealed the deal for Whisenhunt, which should appeal to Chargers fans.
McCoy made other subtle moves within his coaching staff, such as retaining defensive coordinator John Pagano, who led the Chargers to the ninth-best defense in the National Football League last year.
Joining McCoy in making personnel decisions will be new general manager Tom Telesco. Telesco, hired a week before McCoy, formerly served as the Indianapolis Colts’ vice president of football operations and had a say in the hiring of McCoy, which makes him one-for-one on decisions thus far in his Chargers’ career.
I think the hiring of these men will excite a rather bored and uninspired fan base, help lead the Bolts back to the postseason and deliver a Super Bowl ring—something Smith and Turner were unable to do during their times in San Diego. The future looks bright for the Chargers and a new era seems to be in store for San Diego.
