PRO FOOTBALL ’92 : At the Back of the Class : After Two Years Under Bobby Beathard, Chargers Still Are Seeking a Playoff Diploma

“The Smartest Man in the NFL,” as Sports Illustrated described him a few years ago, has gone stupid, or so the record indicates.

In two years as general manager of the San Diego Chargers, Bobby Beathard has a 10-22 record. And that team begins this season as a 1,000-to-1 shot to win the Super Bowl, according to Las Vegas oddsmakers.

“We’ve done everything we set out to do,” Beathard said in mock earnestness.

Alex Spanos is not laughing. He has been the team’s owner for eight seasons, and for eight seasons his team has failed. Perennial doormats such as Indianapolis and New England have advanced to the playoffs in that time, but the Chargers have not.

The hiring of Beathard, who molded the Washington Redskins, was going to change all that. Spanos said so.

“I believed that,” Spanos said. “I told him I wanted to go to the playoffs the first year. Now you can laugh if you want, but that’s how I felt.

“But hell, he’s no miracle man. What did he come into? What did we have when he got here? Now he has a new coaching staff. I don’t think there are a dozen players left from what he had three years ago. Now these are his people. Now let’s see what happens.”

Beathard is in the third and final year of his contract with Spanos, an impetuous owner who has employed four head coaches and four front-office bosses during his reign.

“I have no problems with Bobby Beathard,” Spanos said. “Of course, he’s had problems with me because I keep saying all the time, ‘Hey, when are we going to win?’

“When I hired Bobby, I hired him on the condition I give him free rein to run this ballclub the way he wants to run it. And that’s exactly the way he’s done it. He will not be in trouble with Alex Spanos. OK? He can stay here 10 years if he wants.”

Beathard smiled. “I haven’t heard that lately,” he said.

“I’d say we’re at the point now where we have to be held accountable for what’s going on. I’m not saying we weren’t accountable the last two years, but I mean, this is more our product.

“It doesn’t happen overnight. The one thing I don’t like to be associated with is that they lost for eight or nine years or whatever it is here. That’s not my fault. It’s not the guys that are here. There are a string of losses and now we’re lumped into that.”

Beathard has survived two years of unfulfilled expectations without so much as a whimper from local fans, media critics or ownership.

Steve Ortmayer, Beathard’s predecessor, guided the Chargers to a 14-17 record and their only winning season since 1982 in his first two years in command, and the fans and media were asking for his ouster.

Ortmayer’s assignment was to reshape a team that had finished 4-12 a year earlier. As did Beathard, he inherited a coach, Al Saunders; as did Beathard, he began his third year with a new one. On the recommendation of Beathard, Ortmayer hired Dan Henning.

Ortmayer never made it into his fourth season with the Chargers. He was held accountable for poor draft selections, a disastrous trade and a losing record.

Two years later, there have been more poor draft selections, another disastrous trade and a worse record.

“I don’t want anything to sound like I’m saying anything to save my job or anything like that,” Beathard said. “That’s not one of the things I sit around and think about. But I think it’s coming together. I feel the changes we’ve made are the changes that get you to the point where you are a competitive team.

“When we came here, I probably (miscalculated). . . . I wasn’t as familiar with what they had here, and there were more changes that had to be made than I would have guessed before we came. I had a list here. . . . I was going to show you a list of 16 players we changed that first year. These were guys they were trying to win with, and you couldn’t win with those kind of guys.”

Beathard has always put great stock in intangibles. He measures character as closely as a 40-yard dash. When he came here, quarterback Jim McMahon, defensive back Elvis Patterson and safety Vencie Glenn were Chargers--but not for much longer.

“A guy coming into this position that didn’t have the confidence in his ability that Bobby has might have taken a shortcut or patched things up,” said Billy Devaney, the Chargers’ director of player personnel.

“Bobby said, ‘Even if we have to bite the bullet, we’re going to do it the right way.’ In some cases, it meant taking a step or two backward.

“Yeah, expectations were a lot higher because Bobby Beathard was coming in. I don’t want to say it was unfair, but it was probably a little unrealistic to think that one guy coming in--especially a front-office guy--was going to take the team to the playoffs the first year.

“It will turn around faster than most when it’s all said and done. The foundation is here. People saw flashes last year of a team on the rise. Expectations should be raised and accelerated. We can be real competitive this year. We’re past the building for down the road. We have to start putting some wins together now.”

Beathard, the friendly, unassuming surfer, remains as popular as ever.

“He has a different approach,” Spanos said. “He’s a different sort. It’s not the kind of ego I’ve had to deal with in the past. Don’t get me wrong, we all have egos and he’s no different. But he doesn’t look for it. The only thing he wants is to win, and I can see that.”

Ortmayer ignored public relations and believed that winning would take care of everything. As has Beathard, he had his successes and failures.

Ortmayer found running back Marion Butts, wide receiver Anthony Miller, running back Rod Bernstine, center Courtney Hall, defensive end Burt Grossman and guard David Richards in his three drafts, but he missed on cornerback Lou Brock, a second-round pick; wide receiver Quinn Early, a third-round choice, and defensive end Karl Wilson, a third-round choice.

Beathard also has had three years to draft, and he has produced linebacker Junior Seau, safety Stanley Richard, guard Eric Moten, wide receiver Nate Lewis and quarterback John Friesz.

But he has made errors, too: linebacker Jeff Mills, and wide receivers Walter Wilson and Ray Ethridge, all third-round picks.

Beathard has also had the benefit of Plan B the last three seasons. He found five Plan B players in the last two years who start for the team, but it appears that none of his 10 choices this year--with the exception of deep snapper Sam Anno--will start this season.

“Oh, gosh, I’ve always missed on some players,” Beathard said. “It bothers me if we blow a choice, but I think you have to look over the next couple of years to see what comes out of the draft.

Ortmayer’s downfall became almost a certainty when he traded Pro Bowl tackle Jim Lachey to the Raiders for tackle John Clay and running back Napoleon McCallum. Clay started one game before being released because of a neck injury, and McCallum was returned to the Raiders for an 11th-round pick after never playing a down.

Beathard also has made a controversial trade. After selecting defensive tackle George Thornton and running back Eric Bieniemy during the second round of last year’s draft, he traded the Chargers’ No. 1 pick to Washington this year for another second-round pick to take Moten.

Moten has established himself as a starting guard, but the Redskins used the Chargers’ No. 1 choice to select wide receiver Desmond Howard, the Heisman Trophy winner.

“No, no (it was not a mistake),” Beathard said. “I’m so happy we have Moten. I’m not being stubborn. I think it is part of getting where we want to go. It’s part of how we operate.”

Those kinds of daring maneuvers have worked before for Beathard.

When he took charge of the Redskins in 1978, he was given no top draft picks and an Over the Hill Gang that was really over the hill. It took the firing of Coach Jack Pardee, the hiring of Joe Gibbs and a long list of personnel moves, but after the 1981 season, the Washington Redskins were the Super Bowl champions.

Of the 53 players who were Chargers when Beathard was hired on Jan. 3, 1990, only 12 remain. None of the team’s coaches predate Beathard’s arrival, and now Bobby Ross has become Beathard’s Joe Gibbs.

“I worked with Dan Henning in Washington, and I think he’s a hell of a coach,” Beathard said. “I don’t want this to be an indictment against Dan. It’s just that you look at the way it was then and the way it is now--there’s a big, big difference.

“Bobby Ross is a professional head coach. He’s a real head coach. It turns out Joe Gibbs, who never had head coaching experience, is a real head coach. And there are a lot of similarities between Bobby and Joe.”

Henning, who was caught in a cross-fire of philosophies after working with Ortmayer and then Beathard, took most of the criticism for the Chargers’ 4-12 finish last season. Henning, who now is an assistant with the Detroit Lions, would say only: “When does Bobby Beathard begin to be judged by the team’s wins and losses?”

Said Beathard: “That’s the only way you can be judged. We will win. Because we didn’t do it last year and the year before it doesn’t do me any good now to say I think we were better than a 4-12 team. But I know we were better than a 4-12 team last year. I don’t want to say anything like I’m trying to take the blame off of me, because, shoot, I’m supposed to be responsible.”

How responsible was he for that 4-12 finish?

“It’s tough to say how responsible,” Beathard said. “If you try to compare it with what happened in Washington, it’s not a whole lot different. Jack Pardee has been a successful coach everywhere, but there was something that bothered me and just didn’t seem right.

“I’m not saying individual coaches weren’t good, but as a group they weren’t getting it done. It’s almost the same thing that was happening here. Each one of these coaches might do very well in a different environment, but they had to be pulled together.”

Gibbs brought it all together in Washington, and now Ross is confronted with a similar task in San Diego.

“There are a lot of positive changes we’ve made here,” Beathard said. “I think the players sense it. I’m not saying we’re the most talented team in the league, but I think we have enough talent to be competitive because when you look around and start trying to make trades, there are teams that aren’t as talented as we are.

“Some of these teams, though, have performed better on the field and won. I think there has to be a guy that can bring them together like that. I think Bobby Ross has done a lot in a short time to bring the guys together. We have to keep doing our part in trying to upgrade the product.”

The Chargers will play the easiest schedule in the NFL this season based on their opponents’ won-lost records last season. But they have lost their starting quarterback, Friesz, to a season-ending knee injury.

“So what?” Beathard said. “We’ve got some good quarterbacks, and I don’t really think that is going to affect us. It wasn’t like losing Dan Marino or John Elway. We think a lot of John, but he was still a baby in this league.

“I don’t feel there’s any reason for us not to be just as good as we would have been with him as with the guys we have now. I think we have a formula here that will work, and it’s going to work.

“The owner has every right to expect us to win, and I expect us to win. We are at the stage where we should show we’re a much better team than we were the last two years.”