Chargers’ Brain Trust Hoping to Avoid a Bobbery
Right now it can only be a prediction: Bobby Ross will not be coaching the San Diego Chargers next season.
Right now Bobby Ross says he is not interested in any other job. And Bobby Beathard, the team’s general manager, says, “Ross will be the coach next year.”
The “Two Bobbies,” signed through the 1999 season, have been a dynamic duo and have guided the Chargers to three playoff appearances in the last four seasons. Their very presence, which has pleased San Diego fans, allowed Charger ownership to ramrod a city-subsidized $78-million, 10,000-seat expansion to San Diego Jack Murphy Stadium.
A divorce now would appear to make no sense, but there may be grounds for a split based on irreconcilable differences, although it would not come to that if Ross simply left to return to his first love: college football.
--Irreconcilable differences. Beathard and Ross will meet after the season, and Beathard is expected to suggest/demand that Ross dismiss offensive coordinator Ralph Friedgen and defensive coordinator Dave Adolph.
“If it gets to that, OK then, there are going to be some tough decisions,” Ross said.
The two words used most often in describing Ross are “intensity” and “loyalty.” Friedgen and Ross have been coaching together for more than 20 years, and Ross hired Adolph two years ago to replace the retiring Bill Arnsparger.
“I have always talked to him about his staff, but we haven’t gotten to that point this season,” Beathard said. “We have always had a relationship where we are free to tell each other our opinions. What those opinions are now, I can’t say. They are not completely formulated.”
Beathard and Ross say they have a great working relationship, but behind the scenes there are differences one would expect to find in two men who have been previously successful by doing things their own ways. Ross maintains tight control over his assistants, does not accept criticism of players or coaches, and believes the front-office staff should remain in the front office.
“There is a side of the program [in professional football] in which there are other people who have input on things that you’re not used to in college,” Ross said. “I worked for athletic directors that stayed completely away.
“With this, you do have to put up with that to some extent, but I’m a military guy, I know how to respect authority. I may not like it all the time, but I’ve been able to work with it.”
Beathard, who scouts more than any other general manager to get a feel for college players, likes to do the same when in town, talking to his players and coaches to better understand the mood of the team. However, he no longer makes as many visits to the Charger coaching offices.
That is no big deal when a team is winning, but the Chargers appear near collapse, and everyone concerned is frustrated.
Players have been quoted, anonymously, challenging the coaching staff’s ability to motivate players. A year ago, players such as Natrone Means, Leslie O’Neal and Ronnie Harmon were the scapegoats for missed expectations, and the Chargers had made the playoffs. This year, the assistant coaches are under the gun.
Beathard, although as obliging and friendly as any general manager in the league, is ruthless when it comes to assembling what he believes will be a winning team. Insiders say he has the highest regard for Ross, but he has become increasingly frustrated with Ross’ unwillingness to accept suggestions.
Beathard has ideas on what will turn the Chargers around. He will not surrender to Ross’ loyalty if it is a roadblock, and knowing Ross as he does, there is a feeling here he already knows Ross will not back down.
When it came to firing Dan Henning as coach six years ago, Beathard had Ross in mind with more than a month left in the regular season.
Has Beathard already decided who will coach the Chargers next season if Ross leaves? Northwestern’s Gary Barnett? Philadelphia defensive coordinator and former Redskin assistant Emmitt Thomas? Or, the Alex and Dean Spanos choice for many years, Florida’s Steve Spurrier?
“I would expect Bobby to be coaching here next year,” Beathard said. “Bobby is very intense. When I was asking people about him when I was thinking about hiring him, no one could think of any negatives or limitations, although one close friend said, ‘He’s much too hard on himself and he’s always carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders.’
“I hate to see him when he gets that way, but listen, any problems we have are not his fault.”
--First love. Ross is the quintessential college coach. He believes in morality, hard work and pep talks, and over an 11-week span, that rings true with impressionable youth. Push that hard beginning in July, as he does with the pros, and try to fire up the troops day after day for the next five months, and as he said recently, “It’s nowhere near as much fun as in college football.”
Has Ross already decided to quit?
“I’ve got a daughter here and three grandchildren, and that’s exciting to me,” he said. “I mean, you never know what can happen, but I’m not thinking of quitting. I could walk in there and [Beathard] might disagree with me on some things, and then he has to decide and I have to decide. But we’ve always been able to work things out and I don’t see any big problems there.
“Now if I get to the end of the season and I talk to my wife. . . . But that’s out of sight and out of mind for me right now. I’m only thinking about Pittsburgh [San Diego’s opponent Sunday].”
But has Ross tired of the professional game? Is his style of coaching better suited to the shorter college season? Does he enjoy working with the college athlete more than the professional?
“It was a tough decision, leaving college football, and there are times when I’ve looked back on that decision,” Ross said. “I don’t think you can get a very good relationship between a coach and a player in the professional game. I liked having a relationship with a player. That’s a huge difference.”
But Ross, who will be 60 the day after the Chargers’ final regular-season game, said he has not gone shopping for a college job.
“I can’t tell you why my name is always mentioned for jobs,” he said. “I don’t like it because after a while, people get very irritated with you and they think, ‘Let his butt get the hell out of here, if he wants out of here anyway.’ That’s not true and I’m fed up with it.”
LIFE AS A JET
Linebacker Mo Lewis, sidelined for the rest of the season because of a torn chest muscle, is signed to play for the Jets through 1999, but he’s sorry now.
“I remember the time [cornerback James] Hasty was sitting at his locker crying, saying, ‘Man, I can’t take it no more.’ Your time starts running out. You burn yourself out playing when you keep coming up on the short end of the stick.
“I’d like to know what it’s like not to go home right after the last game. I don’t even know about the playoffs. People say ‘playoff,’ and that word’s not even in my vocabulary.”
Or, as defensive tackle Matt Brock said after last week’s loss to Houston, “Obviously, everybody packed it in, subconsciously or consciously. It was embarrassing and ugly. This confirms everybody’s view of this team.”
ASK FOR A RAISE
You have had a better year than Neil O’Donnell or you are no longer employed. O’Donnell, on sick call for the rest of the year because of a calf injury, was 0-6 as a starter for the Jets.
As for performance reviews, the Jets paid him $2.125 million for each of his four touchdown passes this season.
His comment: “I’ve got nothing to say.”
Tampa Bay paid former Dallas wide receiver Alvin Harper $10.6 million, which computes to $3.53 million per touchdown catch.
Last week against Carolina, the Buccaneers didn’t play him because the field was wet. He said he was fine, but apparently the team didn’t want to get his uniform dirty.
“If they want to pay me for just hanging around here, I’ll take the money,” Harper said. “I’ve got no problems with that.”
IN QUOTATION MARKS
Detroit quarterback Scott Mitchell with three games to play: “I’m fed up.”
Detroit Coach Wayne Fontes on speculation about his continued employment: “I don’t listen to radio. I don’t read the paper. I don’t listen to those terrible talk shows. I don’t watch TV. I won’t watch a sports show on TV, be it local or national. I’ll sit there and watch something that’ll make me laugh or I’ll watch an old movie or something of this nature.”
Dallas Coach Barry Switzer on Leon Lett’s drug problem: “I had a chapter in my book [“Bootlegger’s Boy”] about . . . how [drugs] have affected the game, how it has affected society. No one is immune. It’s a national epidemic. It’s not just a Cowboys’ problem. . . . There is nothing I can do. I have enough damn problems raising my own kids.”
EXTRA POINTS
--Expansion teams Carolina and Jacksonville are a combined 26-32 in their first two years. The two ever-lousy New York teams are 14-44 in that same time.
--Terry Kirby’s 105-yard performance against Atlanta broke a 49er string of 32 games without a running back topping the century mark.
--Chicago Coach Dave Wannstedt, who received a handsome contract extension a year ago, has a 30-31 record with the Bears. Neill Armstrong, who preceded Mike Ditka as coach, had a 30-34 mark after his first four years and was fired.
--The Minnesota Vikings are 6-0 in games in which a running back has carried the ball at least 20 times. So why not hand the ball to the running back at least 20 times every game?
--The Denver Post and Milwaukee Journal Sentinel polled one NFL writer in each of the 30 NFL cities this week and asked them, at this point of the season, who would get their MVP vote?
Denver quarterback John Elway received 11 votes, Denver running back Terrell Davis got 10 and Green Bay quarterback Brett Favre received nine, meaning all three leading MVP candidates will be at Lambeau Field Sunday.
--Since General Manager Jim Finks left the team because of illness--and later died--the Saints are 24-37. They were 69-42 from from 1987 until 1992 with Finks in control.