1-Man’s Opinion Column-Monday-12/28 “A Vote to Hire-Fire”

Posted by on December 28th, 2015  •  0 Comments  • 

“A Vote to Hire-Fire”

 
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The misery is almost over for this San Diego Chargers football team.
They delivered Christmas Eve gifts to the Oakland Raiders on Thursday night, giving San Diego’s fans a lump of coal that read (4-11) this season, and (0-5) in the AFC West.

 

The records are awful, so is the team, and many think the leadership ranks right up their too in the standings. And now the question, what to do?

 

Dad is surely not going to fire son. There’s nothing wrong with nepotism, if you are on the receiving end, just ask John Spanos, whose VP-job is safe.

 
The GM was given a 3-year contract extension before the season began, after what many thought was a pretty good off season of drafting and signings.

 
It didn’t work out, with all these injuries, and the inability to find the right system for the top draft pick, running back Melvin Gordon. The free agents for the most part failed.

 
And where do you place coach Mike McCoy in the ‘blame game’ of all this.

 
He coaches the players given to him. He is the creator of the offense. His people call the plays in an anemic offense, and a struggling defense. His philosophy for sure.

 
McCoy is now (23-26) in his nearly 3-year run. Is it all his fault?

 
This year has been a nightmare. As of this morning, the Chargers have 15-losses by 7-points or less in his three campaigns. It’s all a bottom line business-did you win-did you lose? As Bill Parcells would say, ‘no medals for trying’.

 
So you wonder if McCoy has the creative juice to find a way to will his team to victory. His quarterback has that history, but maybe it is Philip River’s will to win that kept games so close.

 
Of course there have been 9-double digit losses during McCoy’s run too. Some really hidious beatings at home included. You cannot forget (33-3) to the Chiefs, and the (37-6) deficit they had to the Raiders, and a (37-0) trashing to Miami.

 
Lost too in the setbacks the last two years, the flashy no-huddle offense they had in year one. Those pages didn’t fall out of the playbook, they just don’t have the talent to run lots of that stuff now. Running Jevontee Herndon and Donnie Inman out there as your starters does that to your playbook.

 
They remain married to the (3-4) defense, but don’t have the front to dominate, and the young linebacking corps has been learning on the jobs. Lots of big 10-plus runs, lots of 20-yard passing plays too against John Pagano’s crew.

 
And then the injuries. The numbers are staggering. Of the top 60-players they had on the opening day roster, 27-of them have sustained major injuries.

 
6-of-the top 7-offensive lineman have had significant injuries, concussions, knees, ankles, and many of them with multiple injuries.

 
And the concussion syndrome, 15-concussions this year, leading the NFL in that category.

 
So what do the Bolts do? You can fire McCoy, but what percentage of all this is his fault.

 
They owe him a year, and should give him a year to fix the mess. 3-weeks ago, he said ‘we take ownership of this mess’. If so, give him 2016 to fix this mess.

 
He may be loyal to his staff, and that’s great, but he may go down with the ship if he keeps Frank Reich as offensive coordiantor and Pagano on the defensive side.

 
They must draft a nose tackle and an offensive tackle. They are going to have two picks in the top 35-most likely. They hope to get hurt people healthy.

 
This is not all McCoy’s fault, but he shares the blame. If they’re not firing the VP of football ops, nor the GM, then they shouldn’t fire the coach either, not for another year.

 
McCoy has to prove however, he can become a Mike McCarthy, or reinvent a team like Andy Reid. He must also prove he is not Eric Mangini nor Kevin Gilbride.

 
Give him 2016. Give him next year.

 

 

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