“Chargers-Searching for Winner-For This Loser”

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Mike McCoy will be alright going forward.

The Chargers blew out their 4-year head coach after back to back disastrous seasons.

Part of me felt bad for him. Part of me thought he was delusional. Part of me thought he was disingenous. Part of me thought he was a bright light. Part of me thought he was not a winner.

The Chargers finished up the season with a typical loss. Score early, watch your quarterback throw interceptions, and wait around for the special teams unit to screw up.

It happened yesterday, just like it happened so many other times before.

In the end, McCoy never had a chance to show us how good he could be, because he had a better team on the NFL injured reserve list than he had on the field. But then again, everybody gets players hurt Sunday-by-Sunday.

McCoy lost me early in his tenure. He continually lied to the media about the extent of injuries, even when the truth would not have impacted competitive balance in upcoming games.

He lost me when at 12 noon a year ago today, he praised his assistant coaching staff for working thru the horrors of a (4-12) season. Three hours later, the club put out a gutless press release, firing 7-assistants. Scape goats.

He threw them overboard to save his job, got an extension he did not deserve, now he walks the plank too.

The numbers are staggering in San Diego.

Philip Rivers has 1-playoff win in 10-years. McCoy’s teams had 24-losses by 8-points or less. There were 12-blown fourth quarter leads in the last year and a half.

At home they were (6-12) the last year and a half. They were (10-26) over the last two and a half years. He was (1-13) vs the AFC-West since the middle of the 2014 schedule.

The bigger story, the team never improved as the seasons went on. Yes Andy Reid has had some horrible losses in Kansas City, so has Mike Tomlin in Pittsburgh, but by the end of the season, those teams normally win. Not here, not ever under McCoy’s reign.

It would be easy to pile on, that he continue to make stupid statements Monday after Monday to the media. He was borderline dishonest in dealing with a media doing its job.

In the end though, he was not cut from the same cloth as others to be a head coach. Mike McCoy was no different than Norv Turner, good at one thing, being a coordinator, bad at the other, being a head coach.

Nothing to be ashamed off. Lots of coaches are better being coordinators than attempting the head coaching route. Sadly, San Diego learned again that this was as bad as Kevin Gilbride’s or Dan Henning’s hire.

But he still has his resume and portfolio

He should resurface quickly as somebody’s else’s right hand man. Maybe in Denver if they sort the staff situation out after Gary Kubiak’s decision to step down.

Maybe re-linking with John Fox in Chicago, where they need lots of creative offensive help.

Maybe in Carolina with Ron Rivera. Maybe in Baltimore, where they’ve blown out 5-offensive coordinators in as many years. Maybe with the wreckage that is the Rams.

I forever remember what he accomplished the crisis time in Denver when he had to play and get Tim Tebow ready.

He walks away I am sure hurt, maybe even angry. But he walks away with a buyout from a contract that would have paid him around 4.5M next season.

No one knows what happens to the 20-assistants on the staff. John Pagano has been here 15-years as a key assistant. Ollie Wilson, some 14-seasons.

The Chargers? Team Spanos doesn’t have much of a track record doing anything right. This should be Tom Telesco’s hire, no one else’s, but then again Telesco hired McCoy in the first place.

Back in 2013, I said McCoy was the best hire out there, and he was walking into the best situation around, with Rivers and a bunch of skill players. But it deteriorated under his reign.

Dean Spanos has made so many mistakes, from football to business and in between, you wonder if he can get anything right? Under his leadership, the Chargers removed Bobby Ross and Marty Schottenheimer. That’s some history isn’t it.

Hoping for better days for Mike McCoy. Wish it would have worked out. Wish he could have made friends in the media, but the culture in the building at Chargers Park, the Fortress, won’t allow that. No one will give them the benefit of doubt when times get tough.

And in the end, coaches get hired to be fired in almost all cases. Looking for a winner to turn around this loser of a franchise..

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