“Topics on the Table-Lots of Them”

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Chargers…Now Brandon Mebane, their heart and soul NT is gone for the yer with a torn tricep…he becomes the 12th veteran to go on injured reserve…and 16th player overall.

Bolts….Mike McCoy is always ready with a cliche after all these losses….Saying and doing are two separate things though…no explanation from him as his team blows a 4th quarter lead, and loses for the 5th time this season…Obvious he cannot coach them up to win.

Aztecs…RB-DJ Pumphrey is rated the #1- “3rd down running back” on the Our Lads NFL Draft Board as of now, looking towards the college draft in April.

San Diego State…Football team is (19-1) since last October, with a wicked defense…Rea litmus test this weekend in Wyoming…cold-altitude etc.

USD…Headed towards 1AA playoffs…but it seems so unfair…Toreros don’t give out scholarships, and will be playing teams that give out 65-scholarships…Wish the Pioneer League would move to true Division III football…would love to see USD play those small college (non-scholarship) powers like Wisconsin-Whitewater and Mt. Union.

Padres…Have almost disappeared off the off-season radar…now saying they may not be very active in off season wheeling and dealing….So far only pickup is Jamie Romak…a journeyman minor league outfielder, who went to Japan last year and hit (.113).

San Diego State…..Basketball team looks loaded, with tremendously athletic young frontline…Year that Malik Pope must step up and be consistent game-by-game as a 3rd year players…No doubt guards Trey Kell and Jeremy Hensley will carry this team till the young kids on the front line grow into the job…Crushing opening loss on road to Gonzaga-frontline has to grow up quickly-especially against killer non conference schedule early.

USD…Coach Lamont Smith went (9-21) last year, and now his big men have gone and they are off to an (0-2) start already this year…Program slipped under ex-Gonzaga assistat coach Bill Grier, who was hired with great accolades at USD, and didn’t get it done….tough place to be bad, the West Coast Conference, with the likes of the Zags and St. Mary’s on the schedule.

Gulls..Best thing about being top affiliate for NHL team, is the load of young draft picks and Euros they send to San Diego to play in the AHL….Worst thing, phone rings and the Anaheim Ducks keep calling up players.

Sports Arena…50th Anniversary of the grand old building this week…the Hahn Family cares…and thanks to their affiliation with AEG, the corporate arena giant, lots of good things are happening just off Midway Drive…but a major league city really needs a major league arena….Maybe AEG becomes that catalyst.

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“Chargers Week Goes from Bad-to-Worse”

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Explanations or Excuses.

It does not matter, because the Chargers are (4-6) and pretty much out of the playoff race.

They lost an ugly game yesterday to the Miami Dolphins.

Their offensive line was mugged by the Miami defense front. Ndomakong Suh, Cam Wake and that gang just smashed the San Diego offensive front, and blasted Philip Rivers.

Yes Rivers threw 4-interceptions, an all time worst day in his career. But it was more than that.

He took 10-hits..was pressured 14-times, had to move the pocket, throw off his back foot, and take all types of shots.

Yes Rivers hit a few pass plays down the field, but the longer it went, the worse it got for the Bolts quarterback.

The reality, who aside from that quarterback, and the stud running back, Melvin Gordon, scares any defense? No one I know.

Antonio Gates caught 4-balls early then disappeared. Rookie Hunter Henry has not been the same since a minor concussion issue and a knee injury.

On defense, for the second week in a row, the pass rush never got to the quarterback either. The end result was 13-plays of plus 10-yards…and 6-critical plays of plus-20 yards.

The Dolphins nearly gave it away, with 7-critical penalties that gave San Diego first downs, but the Chargers turnovers kept negating everything Miami gave them.

A beaten down Mike McCoy and an overwhelmed Philip Rivers were downtrodden after game.

6-minute press briefings filled with cliches told the story.

McCoy had to look at the video, yeah, like watching it will make things better.

Better if he was just honest, and told the truth, the team doesn’t have enough play makers on either side of the ball, so many are hurt.

The day started badly and got worse. Kansas City and Denver appeared on their way to losses, but rallied to win, thanks to their defenses, in critical road games.

3-teams in the AFC-West now have 7-wins, San Diego is (4-6), and facing a road game in Carolina, one in Tampa, and homefield matchups with the Chiefs and Raiders.

What a terrible week. Losing at the ballot box, then losing on the field.

A shame, that the stadium had so many empty seats, and there were so many Miami fans in the yard.

Worse, 6-more weeks of futility ahead with half a roster.

Solution, wait till next year, hope for more players, return to health of others.

From bad to worse, you wonder if it every will end.

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“This-That-Some of the Other”

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Chargers…If the Bolts are an underperforming team, so is Miami, in which the arrow was supposed to be pointed up with young QB-Ryan Tannehill. At least the Bolts have an explanation-excuse..injury after injury…Tannehill just seems to have regressed…The only big plays Ndomakong Suh makes are when he stomps on someone, kicks them, or goes to the bank to cash a paycheck…Why do I think Albert Haynesworth when I see Suh play?

Dean Spanos..Hard to believe Bolts owner has to “evaluate” what just happened on election day, his Measure C-Stadium proposal, rejected at the ballot box. The man lives in a fantasy world, acting as if he has leverage still. He has never had leverage, since NFL owners voted the Rams to LA and sent him back to San Diego. He blinked when Mayor Kevin Faulconer refused to approve his Measure for nearly 6-months.

Padres…Ever heard the name Frank “Trader” Lane, former GM back in the 50s and 60s, Cardinals, Indians and White Sox. Made his career by dealing away the likes of stars of those days, Minnie Minoso, Rocky Colavito and more. Now I hear AJ Preller is shopping 3rd baseman Yanger Solarte amongst others. Think AJ, think Frank Lane. AJ cannot stop making deals.

Aztecs Football..No one, and I mean no one is paying attention to San Diego State football, not running back DJ Pumphrey, who could go over (2,000) all purpose yards tomorrow night at Nevada..no a defense that has given up just 2-touchdowns in the last five games. Not one sentence nationally about either.

USD Football…Ditto for the Toreros, who play in the shadows of Division 1-AA football, the top defense in the nation at that level…they’ve allowed just 3-TDs in their last 5-games and will be headed back the playoffs later this month.

Aztecs Hoops…SDSU begins the season tonite with a walkover game against lowly USD. The Aztecs unveil lots of new pieces. They look so athletic and are led by two great veteran guards. They win tonite, but the real test if what happens Monday in Spokane when they face West Coast Conference power Gonzaga, which is also loaded.

USD Hoops..This will be painful for 2nd year coach Lamont Smith. He went (9-21) last year, his top big man graduated along with a shooter. He starts 3-freshmen tonite, has little size, and not much experience. A year from tonight they will be better, but this will be another awful season. The program has never been the same since Brad Holland left.

Gulls…Working agreements are great, if the NHL parent club drafts well, and signs international players. The Anaheim Ducks have. But working agreements are awful if that same parent club keeps calling up players. The Gulls have lost 5-in a row, and can never put the same lineup on the ice from one game to the next. The Ducks have called up their top 3-goal scorers and top defenseman 3-different times in the first 4-weeks of the AHL season.

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“Memo to the Chargers Owner”

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Woe to be the owner of the Chargers. Woe to have the last name Spanos and be disliked so much in your adopted home town.

Woe to have spent millions to try and buy favoritism, well-being, and votes on a stadium issue, only to be rejected.

Dean Spanos and is family are under seige, rightly or wrongly.

You could dislike them for the product on the field, possibly looking at another losing season, which would be the 23rd in 33-years of ownership.

You could grieve they’ve been to just one Super Bowl, or made fatal mistakes in the mishandling of the decisions on their most popular coaches, Don Coryell, Bobby Ross and Marty Schottenheimer.

You can surely hold a grudge at all of the business decisions, from the Stadium Super Bowl seat expansion, to the egregious ticket guarantee, to the starts, stops, failures and off ramp activities involving the building of a stadium and the threats to move to Los Angeles.

If the (30-2) NFL owners vote to dismiss the Spanos idea of the Carson Stadium wasn’t the jolt of a lifetime, then maybe this setback at the voter’s booth, might superceed all of his disappointments of owning this NFL franchise.

The Spanos’ speak of the world ‘loyalty’ so often, and it counts for something, if you are on the receiving end of their family loyalty. Sons get cushy front office jobs. Employees who had towed the line, keep their jobs.

But player loyalty has come only after pain of separation. Fan loyalty has not been rewarded, especially with the on-going threats of a move to LA, echoed from Spanos spokesman on a regular basis.

Dean Spanos wants to be liked and respected.

Tough to do when you keep seeing his actions, read his press statements, and wait for the next move that goes against logic, from someone who says he badly wants to stay in San Diego.

So we have reached a point where someone has to step forward and make a positive move to pick up the pieces of the shattered relationships, and voted down proposals we have seen.

Very simply said, Dean Spanos doesn’t need more time to think things thru. He needs to take action to show he is going to stay in San Diego.

He has the option to move January 15th, invoking a clause to relocate to Los Angeles. He can do it in January 2017, and could also use the clause in January 2018.

If he wants to get a stadium bill passed, end the threat of a move. Void the 2017-clause, go public, commit to work the next year with all the key factions, city-county, the hotel industry, tourism, convention center people.

Find alternative funding plans, consider the Qualcomm sight, add in the potential of using hotel tax money, Chargers-NFL money, city-county money, and build in Mission Valley for football, and at Tailgate Park for the annex.

But the only way to have credible talks, free of agendas, is to end the threats, by voiding the January 2017 LA-clause, giving this one full year of all parties on board, to find a blueprint that works.

Dean Spanos cannot rescue his good name, unless he is willing to do the right thing, keep the franchise here, and to push the ball forward in a collective deal that helps his team, this city, and his legacy.

Ending the LA threat is the most credible thing he can do, and should be the first step to take the other steps to get a stadium built.

Anything short of that is only empty rhetoric, time wasted, and more money spent.

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“Defeats & Disappointments”

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I am a big believer in the infrastructure of your city.

I believe you need to invest in your city, help its industries, and take care of its citizens.

Building a football stadium and a convention access helps make your city a better place to live and work, but doing that, spending resources on that, when tax money raised could be used for police hirings, emergency vehicle purchases, and street repairs, are probably just as important.

As the Chargers Stadium Measure C went down to defeat with horrible early voter returns, you had to weigh the wants of a rich owner, and the needs of a city, that still has internal problems.

Somewhere, somehow, sometime, San Diego has to find the resources to build a new NFL stadium.

It’s equivalent to building an office building for a banking center that might be here.

You don’t want to run off Bumble Bee Tuna and its business here. You surely don’t want to run off the Chargers either, for they are an industry, that employs people.

But this morning, we have police protection shortcomings, a homeless citizen problem, and multiples of other issues.

So the tug of war between needs of the community vs the wants of the owner of the football team, will continue to take place.

Why did Measure C go down so badly, (61%) No…(39%) Yes?

People weren’t educated enough. They put out a 114-page book detailing the plans. Who has the time, much less the intellect to read something of that magnitude.

The Chargers will tell you they spent 7M-advertising Measure C, but other sources say a large part of that was spent on gettlng people to sign the initiative, to put it on the ballot, not so much educating the voters.

Can’t tell you how many people I came across who thought they’d be taxed for a stadium, failing to understand it was a tourist hotel tax, not a tax on you and me.

Chargers history has lots to do with this failure. Dean Spanos’ sanctioned scorched earth policy put out by Mark Fabiani.

Add to that a year long romance trying to move his franchise to Los Angels, so he could make more money before he put it up for sale. Selling a 2B-franchise in LA brings bigger return than a 1.6B team in small market San Diego.

Add in the confrontation crisis with the hotel industry, the convention people, tourism, and so many others, and you see why this thing failed.

The solution is simple. Everyone gets a seat at the big roundtable in the Mayor’s office, and everyone gets input into what a new stadium and annex should look like, and where it should be located, and how it should be financed.

Easier said than done, going forward.

But where we have just come from, is worse than what we are facing this morning.

Time for the city to rally behind the Chargers. Time for Team Spanos to realize they need to be a better business partner with the city of San Diego also.

No time for a blame game now. Time to go forward with a better plan.

Defeats and Disappointments. That’s all the Spanos family has known in 32-years of ownership of this franchise, and the relationship they have had with the city.