Marty Schottenheimer fired

[DesertCat]

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I think anyone that can sit there and defend the chargers organization for how this was handled and the fact that the firing was "justified" is smoking something.


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Not saying I agree 100% with the Chargers, but let me take a stab at it.

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The handling of this was a joke. Offering a coach a 1 year extension after going 14-2 is ridiculous. The extension was the same as a dismissal and Marty knew it, which is why he turned it down. He would have been a lame-duck coach left in coaching limbo.


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It's not ridiculous, and it's not the same as dismissal (when you get dismissed, rarely do they offer you more money and ask you to continue to work). If you are running the chargers, you have to decide who contributed more to that 14-2 season, Marty or AJ? And of Marty's contributions, were most of them by his staff or by Marty? Lastly, you have to decide whether you think Marty can ever win in the playoffs.

You and I don't know the internal conflicts and actions that took place. But the owner either does or should, and that could heavily weigh into the decision making. The owner might have decided that while he was really concerned about whether Marty was the right coach after this playoff debacle and some of his other issues, he wanted to give him one more chance to prove he could win when it counted.

If the Chargers win next year, the ownership might have been ready to give him a huge deal and send AJ packing. Instead of takign the opportunity to show what he can do, Marty decided to directly disobey orders and allow his junior staff to interview with other teams. Basically marty pissed all over his bosses. I would have fired him for this alone.

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I've worked in the business world more than at least some of you, and while business isn't exactly like football, I will tell you this. The very best managers (read coaches) are the ones who's employees go on to promotions and better jobs due to the knowledge and/or work ethic and/or inspiration that you provide. The fact that so many of his assistants went on to promotions elsewhere is a pretty good indicator that he might have SOME idea what he's doing.


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I agree with your philosophy, but once again, you don't know what happened behind the scenes. You don't know how much AJ helped hiring these guys, and you don't know how many left because they couldn't stand Marty any more.


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The GM waited so long to fire him that now any of the good hires for the position are gone (For instance, an early decision could have put an existing coach, Wade Phillips in the HC Role). This is just horrible horrible horrible business planning no matter how you look at it. Any new head coach will have less time to assemble a team of coaches because most of the coaching hiring/firing has already happened.


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The GM didn't fire him, the owner did. Originally the GM recommended firing Marty, but the owner decided to give him a one year deal, which Marty s*** on. Once again Marty forced the issue by letting remaining assistants go interview and leave (against direct orders), and then trying to bring in his brother as defensive coordinator.

You can criticize the owner for not firing Marty originally as recommended, or not firing the GM and offering Marty a big extension, but you can't criticize him for responding when Marty started willfully disobeying orders. Marty essentially fired himself.

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AJ made some good draft picks...that might have been skill, it might have been luck. I know that he and Marty disagreed over Brees. Time will tell on Rivers, but I'd side with Marty on this one. You DO NOT get rid of a pro-bowl caliber quarterback that is still young for a prospect who looks good on the practice field. There is no way in hell I would have just released him. I would have tried to lock him up and either keep starting him, or trade a sucessful pro quarterback with a long-term deal to a team that needed one. There are so many horrendous quarterbacks in the NFL I can't see getting rid of a very good one that has started that many games.


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Talent is most important here. AJ picked the talent, not Marty. And don't forget that Bree had a serious injury to his throwing shoulder. Everyone was saying that New Orleans was taking a big risk signing him to a big free agency deal. Now just because the risk worked out doesn't mean it was smart. You are being results oriented here. If Bree's had been healthy, it's likely that Rivers is traded and Bree's stays the starter for a long time. But since they had Rivers in their back pocket, they didn't need to take a risk on Brees. And trading Brees wasn't even possible, do you really think the Chargers let Brees go for free if there were some easy draft picks to be had in trading him?

And to be results oriented, they went 14-2 without Brees.

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If I owned that team, AJ would be gone too...he's an idiot who argued publicly with the coach instead of privately in the club-house and his handling of this couldn't have been more amateurish if he was working as the night-shift manager at Piggly-Wiggly.

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Agreed that AJ should keep his mouth shut. But you are forgetting how Marty has been p***ing in the face of his ownership. So if you have two important contributers behaving childishly, which one do you keep?