“10-Questions for Tom”

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The miserable football season is over, but the ache still remains, because of a battered roster, and the likelihood the Chargers have played their last game in San Diego.

Chargers General Manager Tom Telesco, ‘the Ghost”, who is seldom seen and hardly ever heard, will hold his season ending press conference-autopsy on Friday.

Therefore-10-Questions for Tom.

The day you were introduced, you promised ‘transparency’ in the organization, yet you have disappeared from public view, treat the media with disdain, and have broken the bond you said you would develop with those covering the team. Why?

You were given a contract extension last August after your solid draft and positive free agent spending spree, but it was never announced. Why?

As the national media lampooned Mike McCoy, you stood silent and let him take all the national heat for what wound up to be a terrible season., You preached ‘team’. Why?

You and John Spanos have burned thru 35M in signing bonus money and an overall 65M in guaranteed money in your three years on the job. That’s alot of mistakes?

Have you given a (4-12) coach a contract extension beyond 2016-after all the praise Mike McCoy received from his players for holding the team together thru this nightmare of a season. Does McCoy have a multi-year deal in place?

You obviously believe in McCoy. Was a condition of keeping him, that he purge his assistant coaching staff to stay on the job?

How do you replace 7-assistant coaches on a staff, if Mike McCoy is heading into the final year of his contract?

Do you need to evaluate changes in your medical team, training staff, and strength and conditioning crew in the wake of a horrid siege of injuries this year, a league leading 17-concussions, and a terrible three year run of injured players?

Based on your decision to bypass quality defensive lineman, and not having draft many offensive lineman, aside from DJ Fluker, will those be your priorities drafting at the top of the first and second rounds in April?

Do you and John Spanos owe quarterback Philip Rivers, and this community, an apology for the deterioration of the talent level around a future Hall of Fame quarterback like Rivers?

“Hall of Fame-Still Dealing with Shame”

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The Hall of Fame vote, dealing with players on all types of different levels, is in. Two great players got in. 3-others nearly got in. But the controversy continues to spin out of control about those who did not get it, what they did during their careers, and do alleged cheaters deserve to be in the shrine.

A tough call, a tough decision, a tough vote for the Baseball Writers Association of America.

440-voted yesterday on who should be enshrined at Cooperstown. They struggled with the names on the ballot, the insinuations, and the public pressure.

The BWAA wants to vote on the history of the players, their impact on the game, and how they compared their era, to other eras. Now added on, because of the raging steroid issues that stained the game, comes the pressure of becoming the ‘Moral Compass’ of the game.

All that wrapped around a ballot that includes the words ‘integrity’ and ‘sportsmanship’, which now play into decisions, as much as home runs and batting averages, pitching wins, strikeouts and saves.

Ken Griffey and Mike Piazza got into the Hall of Fame with dominant results. Griffey, the Mariners superstar, received a record 437-of 440-votes cast, that’s 99%, the highest total of all time. Piazza, who sent from 62nd round draft pick, to stardom, to the steps of Cooperstown, made it also, garnering 83% of the vote. And yet, despite those amazing vote totals, rumors and innuendo surrounded them.

Griffey never once was mentioned in any type of baseball probe of the steroid era, from Balco to the Biogenesis scandal. Piazza’s name was linked at one time in the Mitchell Report, which led to reformed and stronger drug testing, and the eventual eradication of steroids, street drugs, and then PED’s. In the end, there were never any positive drug tests to back up any of the allegations, for the Union and Donald Fehr, fought against drug testing.

However the stain of the last steroid scandal, showed up on the baseball record book, and in Congressional hearings. None of those fingered in the last round of drug issues, has made the Hall of Fame.

Slugger Mark Guire, who admitted steroid use to help recover from injuries, fell off the ballot yesterday, getting just 12% of the vote in his final year of eligibility. At least he was honest about doing it, and why he did it.

Not so with the defiance of Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens,, whose years of accomplishments came with syringes and drug clinics and shady characters. Testimony and lawsuits have followed and the linkage is strong. Both got half the votes they needed at 3rd year nominees, in the 44-45% range.

But it was indeed a great day for Griffey and Piazza. Griffey’s 437-home runs, 10-Gold Gloves, 13-time All Star. Piazza, the 62nd round pick, hit 427-home runs and made the Mid Summer Classic 12-times, both justly deserving.

Houston’s Jeff Bagwell missed out by just 15-votes. Tim Raines, the ultimate base stealing slap hitter, fell only 23-votes shy.

No one should be discouraged by the showing of Trevor Hoffman, who picked up an impressive 67% of the vote, and need just 34-additional votes, to gain entrance. It was an impressive first showing, for the fist time his name was on the ballot. His impressive 601-saves, the fact he saved 53% of the games the Padres won in his career, the opponents batting average (.211) against him, will all carry clout this time next year on the ballot

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The stars surely came out on Hall of Fame day, but the storm clouds surrounding the voting process and the names on the ballot, will continue to linger. And there will be a sunny day in the future for Hells-Bells Hoffman.

“Truths & Lies”

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Can you take the man at his word?

That’s the game being played around the nation today, as San Diego Chargers owner Dean Spanos meets with the Committee on Los Angeles, about his interest in moving to Los Angeles.

Before embarking on the Big Apple adventure, Spanos spoke out about how he had tried for 14-years to get San Diego to develop a plan for a new stadium. How he came up with 9-different plans for stadiums, from Qualcomm, to Chula Vista, from Oceanside golf courses, to Indian reservation lands.

That story in only half-true. Yes he proposed, via slick brochures, showing what he’d like built. He never presented specific financing of how to pay for the stadium he and his rich (1.1B) family wanted given to them.

This from the same family who were given a stadium renovation package of new seating, a new owners box, and a new practice facility.

This from an owner who got a ticket guarantee for years, regardless of how bad the product on the field was.

This from a group that had their lease re-worked, always in their favor, multiple times.

The nation should know the difference between reality and the Spanos version of revisionist history.

Lost in the calendar of comments about trying for ’14-years’ is another untruth. In that 14-year span, our nation suffered the atrocity of 9/11. We had the global economy collapse. California went into near bankruptcy as a state. San Diego nearly went bankrupt with the pension scandal. And then we had the real estate recession on top of all that.

Yes, we have horrible mayoral leadership, stretching from drunks to perverts and many in between, who never got anything done.

Putting aside bad economics and bad history, the Spanos family has refused to sit across the table and talk to the quality leadership now provided by Mayor Kevin Faulconer and County leader Ron Roberts. Spanos has had mouthpiece Mark Fabiani, insult, condemn, and denigrate every step civic leaders have tried to make to insure keeping a valued treasure, the Chargers.

Now the scorched earth policy Spanos allowed to happen on his watch, may have turned into a backdraft fire. Pick any of the rumors out there, and maybe now you know why Spanos ended his year plus silence on the Stadium issues with the vanilla comment, he might entertain talks with San Diego, if the NFL does not allow the team to move to LA.

Want to know why this has happened now?

Maybe Spanos has found he cannot get the Carson project built. Maybe his bankers have struck out trying to find investors. Maybe problems have arisen with the toxicity on large chunks of that land.

Maybe Spanos doesn’t want to partner up with Stan Kroenke on Hollywood Park. Maybe Spanos doesn’t have the 500M territorial fee and the 500M-it would cost for his share to co-finance Inglewood.

Maybe he has been told the NFL will let the Rams move there because Kroenke is a business doer-big thinker, compared to Spanos, who has never accomplished anything while owning the franchise here. Did he ever find a way to get a stadium built? Did he ever take over the LA market and make them Chargers fans in the 20-years he’s had to plant his flag in Los Angeles?

The answer is a negative to all the ideas his side of the street has presented. His team can’t win on the field. He can’t make the business end of it work either. And now he wants to make the world think he is the victim, and he wants San Diego to welcome him back with open arms.

The rich man owner wants a stadium given to him. It was that way in 1998….in the mid 2000s….and now in 2016. He can’t accomplish the task.

And his fellow NFL owners don’t care about San Diego. So much for the lip service about ‘home cities’. From Robert Kraft to Jim Irsay, Miami to Minnesota and anywhere in between, all his fellow owners care about is their cut of the pie in LA.

Don’t take the man at his word. The truth is out there. The lies no longer have any credibility.  San Diego residents and fans know.  Hopefully the NFL will find out next.

“The Word  ‘Team’….Empty Meaning Today”

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His end of season press conference was all about positives, and the future, moving forward, forgetting the horror-show (4-12) season his San Diego Chargers had just completed.

In a 24-minute Q-and-A session with Coach Mike McCoy, he must have mentioned words ‘team’ and ‘coaching staff” in a positive way a combined 20-times taking to a large group of us in the media.

He fielded all types of questions, gave redundant cliché-filled answers. Typical comments from the Chargers ‘ball coach
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There were little fragments of information, but nothing of great content, about ownership’s decision to allow to coach in 2016 after the demise of the 2015-season. He refused to answer whether he was given a contract extension, that might match the one his GM, Tom Telesco, received just before the start of the season. Guess it’s his right to retain his personal information, though he was freely speaking about his wife and kids and the offseason plans.

He didn’t want to talk about whether ownership demanded he shakeup his assistant’s coaching staff, only answering my question that the Chargers would evaluate everything about the football operation, from players to coaching, in depth, over the next couple of weeks.

All that around 1pm on Monday. By 4pm, Mike McCoy had fired 6-assistant coaches, most of them veterans in the NFL. No questions nor answers because his post season review, generic as it was, was indeed over. All the info you needed to know about the bodies on the side of the road, the key people on his staff, was contained in a one paragraph press release.

Who,hired when, what positions, and now gone.

How convenient, the coach stays, but all of his hard working loyal veteran coaches are gone. They took out offensive coordinator Frank Reich, wide receiver coach Fred Graves, both of the offensive line coaches Joe D’Allesandris and Andrew Deeds, longtime defensive line coach Don Johnson and tight end coach Pete Metzelaars.

They didn’t even put in any reference to ‘next of kin’, surviving members still on the staff, like defensive coordinator John Pagano, linebacker coach Mike Nolan, or running backs coach Ollie Wilson, or some of the younger assistants, who serve behind the scenes. They still have jobs, though many of the offices around them are now empty.

It’s a pretty tough cleansing of a veteran staff that McCoy had openly praised for their dedication thru all the adversity of an injury ravaged season. The head coach kept using the terms team and coaching staff time and time again thruout his Monday session.  And an indictment, in that he hired a large segment of the group.

When head coaches go, most of the assistants exit too. Aside from the bloody Monday firings in Detroit, where Jim Caldwell blew out as many as four offensive assistants after a (1-7) start, I cannot remember something as nasty as this.

To blame those assistants for this mess, is a cheap way out of not holding yourself accountable.  These were your guys in the foxhole you shared the last three years.

If GM-Tom Telesco mandated all those firings, then we can imagine McCoy new title will be ‘head coach and puppet’.

And now an interesting side story to all this. If McCoy is serving out just the final year of his original contract, how will he, and what quality will be get, when he goes to replace those just departed? And if that is not the case, the alternative exists. McCoy was given a contract extension after a hideous season, a reward for a poor campaign. How does that play out with the fans?

Coaches usually go down with the ship out of loyalty to their staff. History should remind you of the Bobby Ross-Bobby Beathard-Dean Spanos divorce, when Ross, the Super Bowl coach, refused to axe his Coordinator Ralph Friedgen. Ross exited and the staff went with him.

McCoy has every right to retain his personal information from the media and the fans. What is bothersome are the continued ‘lies’ to the media. He knew changes were coming, and lied about evaluations that would take weeks to conduct. Just like he lied about injuries, this guy was ‘dinged’ when he in reality he suffered a catastrophic career ending knee injury.

So now we have a second incident at the Fortress that raises the question, who are these people, and why do they act this way? The Chargers, who always want to use the word family, got nailed for how they treated family, in the fining and suspension of Eric Weddle last week. And now this.

Bothersome too, if McCoy is lying on Monday, how can you trust him on anything else, in the past or in the future.?

He always uses the phrase ‘ in the best interest of the team’. Maybe best interest should include honesty also.

Mike McCoy now viewed as Mike McFib, something that looks bad on your resume, just like the (4-12) record and 10-losses in the last 15-games too you have stapled on it too…

“Chargers Football-A Different Viewpoint”
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When is (4-12) not a (4-12) football season?
Bad is bad, regardless of where you are, but maybe it has a different feel, taste, smell, and even a sting to it this morning in San Diego.
The Chargers clean out their locker-rooms today. They may be packing boxes shortly to move to Los Angeles, sadly.
But in parting, though you have hold the Spanos family is real disregard, don’t do the same to the players, and maybe not even the coaches.
The Chargers left it on the field last night in Denver. Yes it was a (27-20) setback, yes they have lost 15-of-20 dating back to December of 2014, but no they never quit, they never gave up, they kept on coming.
Just ask Denver QB-Brock Osweiler who freaked out in the teeth of the Bolt blitz. They blitzed him 15-times, and the end result was 5-turnovers in th opening half. San Diego could not capitalize because of all ot its shortcomings-injuries to that side of the ball.
It was only fitting, in typical fashion, that 3-more offensive linemen went out with injuries during the game. And they were playing guys who were on the street last Monday, in the secondary, against Peyton Manning.
The Chargers couldn’t stop the run, could stop the big plays, and yes gave up 503-yards in offense. But they also had the ball at mid-field on thier last possesion, and I’d take Philip Rivers any day, and twice on Sunday in a situation like that.
The season is over; a couple of coaches on the staff will likely exit. The head coach stays, because he never ‘lost his team’ as they lost player after player to injuries.
Shame on the GM for not supporting the coach in public as the local and national print media called for and reported his imminent firing.
Shame on the President of Football Operations for hiding behind the door as many of the acquisitions they brought in broke down, or flat out failed.
Is there something to build on next year? Sure the defense. Is there something that needs to be fixed? Definitely, those infront of Philip Rivers.,
Sadly, they likely won’t be here in San Diego, as ownership goes to New York this week to tell everyone who matters, fellow owners, about all the great profits that can be earned if the team moves to Los Angeles.
But for this one final day of a bad season, credit the heart-the-soul, the determination, the professionalism of the head coach and the roster, and that quarterback.
This (4-12) never waved a white flag, even while the Red Cross unit had to cart players off game-by-game.
This team didn’t play like a (4-12) team, that had packed the car and had the motor running. Not with that coach and that quarterback for sure.

This team is very different from its owner, who wants to leave town, yesterday. He’s (4-12), the players are not.