Analysis : With or Without Saunders, What’s Next for Chargers? : Even If He Goes, Some Assistants Should Be Kept
The Chargers say publicly there will be no announcement this week on the future of the coaching tenure of Al Saunders.
The team’s final game is Sunday against the Chiefs. If the Chargers (5-10) lose, they will finish last in the AFC West, comparatively the worst division in the NFL this year. If they win, they will have finished with four victories in the past six games.
But depending on who you talk to in the Charger front office, where you talk to him, what time of day it is and whether the conversation is “on” or “off” the record, you will likely hear:
--Spanos already has made up his mind to fire Saunders.
--Spanos is beginning to question the job done by Steve Ortmayer, his director of football operations.
--Spanos is still smarting from the resounding boos that greeted him at San Diego Jack Murphy Stadium 3 weeks ago during the ceremony to retire Dan Fouts’ jersey.
Make no mistake, Spanos is a tough guy. But he is spending a lot of money on a team headed in the wrong direction. He is under fire for not making a big-enough commitment to the community. And he is 65 and not getting any younger. Who needs all this aggravation?
This, then, is the uncertain climate that pervades the Charger organization as it lurches toward the off-season.
Early last month, Spanos said this: “I still believe in my coaching staff. At the end of the season, let’s see where we’re at.”
Since then he has said exactly nothing. Publicly.
Publicly, the players say Saunders should stay. This shouldn’t surprise anyone. The first player who says publicly that he thinks Saunders should be fired will be the first player everybody remembers as being a bad apple, an insurrectionist, an attitude problem.
There is no Magic Johnson on the Chargers--a player who can get away with criticizing and precipitating the exit of a Paul Westhead.
But if you listen closely to the players state the case for why Saunders should remain, you will hear them talk about “stability” and “change” and “new systems” and “adjustments.”
What you don’t hear are Charger players heralding Saunders as the second coming of Vince Lombardi, or Bill Walsh, or Joe Gibbs or even Don Coryell.
How supportive was Saunders of his players the week before the second Raider game in early November when he delivered his now-infamous “Who would you choose to go to war with if you had to feed your family?” speech, which compared certain Raider personnel favorably with players on his own team?
Saunders says those remarks were misconstrued. Eyewitnesses say they weren’t. Either way, the usually circumspect Saunders should have had the smarts to avoid any such “feed-your-family” comparisons.
A coaching change almost always sets a franchise back at least a year in its quest for the playoffs. Walsh, Mike Ditka and Gibbs--arguably the most successful coaches in the ‘80s--struggled at the beginning just like Saunders. But they didn’t struggle for long.
Walsh was 2-14 and 6-10 his first 2 years in San Francisco. He won a Super Bowl in his third. Chicago’s Ditka was 3-6 and 8-8 before going 10-6 in his third year and winning a Super Bowl in his fourth. Gibbs was 0-5 early in his first year with the Redskins but finished 8-8. He won the Super Bowl the following year. Between Walsh, Ditka and Gibbs, they have won five of the past seven Super Bowls.
Saunders deserves time. Just like any other coach. But projecting the current Chargers into a Super Bowl anytime before the next presidential election looks like sheer folly at the moment.
Actually, Saunders might be miscast as an NFL head coach. His strength is as a motivator. His background is in the passing game. The team Ortmayer is trying to build is one that will attack on the ground and throw the ball when defenses are vulnerable.
In 1970, Saunders obtained a master’s degree in education from Stanford. Motivational coaches are generally more successful in college than they are in the NFL. Stanford has always embraced the forward pass. Isn’t it interesting that Stanford is looking for a head coach at precisely the time Saunders is looking for a sign from Spanos?
Saunders’ shining moment since relieving Coryell almost 26 months ago was the 1987 strike. He convinced the “Re-Chargers” that they were better than anybody’s else’s replacement team. And they responded to his fire with three victories in three games. But it wasn’t good enough. The regulars returned in time to lose their last six. And, despite having won three of the past five regular-season games, including an eye-opening 38-24 upset of the Rams in Anaheim, the Chargers have lost 16 of the past 21 under Saunders.
Saunders’ supporters say his limited successes with the Chargers have come despite a paucity of talent. In college, head coaches can play an active role in recruiting. In the NFL, they are mostly at the mercy of general managers, personnel directors and scouts.
In a recent series of articles, Pro Football Weekly assessed the owners, general managers and scouting departments of the 28 NFL teams. The scouting department grades ranged from “excellent” to “poor.” The Chargers got a “poor.”
Chet Franklin, the director of player personnel and a former Raider assistant, never scouted until last year, the weekly pointed out. It labeled Les Miller, the Chargers’ director of college scouting, “a Kansas City reject.” Miller joined the Chargers in March after directing the previous 13 college drafts for the Chiefs.
Ortmayer didn’t escape criticism either. “Seems to be knowledgeable, but look at his record,” said Pro Football Weekly. “Hard worker, but owner meddles too much. Under a lot of pressure to produce a winner, but bad moves have hurt the team. Does he have the control he thought he’d have?”
PFW hailed Spanos as a “future leader” among owners. But, the publication warned, Spanos “appears to be impatient because he has succeeded at everything so quickly in the past.”
At one point, Charger sources were saying Ortmayer wanted to replace Saunders with Franklin. Ortmayer dismissed the idea out of hand. He also has denied rumors he wants to coach the team himself. There also has been talk that former Raider Coach Tom Flores, close with Ortmayer when both worked in the Raider organization, will be the next Charger coach.
If Spanos does dismiss Saunders, he also will have to decide what to do with Saunders’ staff, widely accepted as one of the league’s best. New coaches typically bring in their own assistants.
But when George Halas, the late Bear owner, fired Neill Armstrong after the 1981 season, he rehired defensive coordinator Buddy Ryan before choosing Ditka. It was a wise move. Many still believe Ryan and his defense were more instrumental in the Bears’ march through the 1985 playoffs than any Ditka contribution. The Bear defense allowed just one touchdown in three postseason games.
Similarly, the Chargers must retain defensive coordinator Ron Lynn, himself recently linked to the Stanford vacancy. Lynn has done much with little ever since he joined the Chargers in January 1986. His defensive line coach, fiery Gunther Cunningham, also is a keeper.
The Chargers are also solid on special teams with dedicated Wayne Sevier. And the philosophy of Jerry Rhome, the offensive coordinator, is just beginning to take root in a unit loaded with new faces and devastated by injuries.
If middleweight back Gary Anderson gains 98 yards Sunday against the Chiefs running in a 1-back offense designed for a heavyweight, he will become only the sixth back in the Chargers’ 29-year history to rush for 1,000 yards in a season.
That’s a tribute to Anderson and Rhome. The offensive line Rhome has fashioned from the slag heap consists of four free agents and a fourth-round rookie, David Richards. One of those free agents, right guard Dennis McKnight, made the AFC Pro Bowl team this year as an alternate by dint of sheer hard work. Jerry Wampfler, the first-year offensive line coach, deserves credit, too.
It’s easy to say the Chargers’ offensive problems would lessen with a top-tier quarterback. But erratic starter Mark Malone isn’t all wrong when he says any quarterback would be struggling in a system where the system is new, the line is below average and the young wide receivers are inconsistent.
The recent history of coaching changes in the NFL is littered with examples of assistant coaches quietly lobbying with owners or media to take over when the embattled head coach loses his job. To the credit of both Lynn and Rhome, there has been no such instance of that.
If Spanos decides to keep Saunders, highly doubtful at this point, the first thing he should demand is a rapprochement, enforced by him, between Ortmayer and Saunders.
Ortmayer and Saunders should be competing together against the rest of the league instead of competing against each other for Spanos’ ear. The latter has too often been the case.