He gets chants, but won’t rub it in
Marty Schottenheimer heard the call. He’s just not in a hurry to answer it.
He didn’t even tune in Sunday when the San Diego Chargers played the Kansas City Chiefs -- two of the teams he used to coach -- and frustrated Chargers fans began their chant: Mart-ty, Mar-ty, Mar-ty.
Instead of watching that game, Schottenheimer spent the afternoon at another. He was in Charlotte, N.C., where he and his wife now live, watching his 6-year-old grandson, Brandon, play soccer.
Only when he returned home and checked his messages did he learn the Chargers -- who unceremoniously dumped him in February despite an NFL-best 14-2 record in the 2006 regular season -- had stumbled to their third consecutive defeat. Friends from all over the country had called to tell him about the crowd’s response.
Was it flattering? Of course. Just four games into the season, after the franchise had replaced him, fans were already longing for the good old days.
But if Schottenheimer derives any told-you-so satisfaction from that, he doesn’t show it. Overriding any temptation to gloat are the lingering feelings he has for San Diego players, most of whom still speak highly of him.
“They’re great kids and they worked their tails off for what we achieved,” he said. “And I’m proud of what we achieved. Are you kidding me? That franchise was in the dumps!”
The interview took place this week in Los Angeles. Schottenheimer was in town to shoot a commercial, and he was with his agent, former NFL defensive lineman Trace Armstrong, who is in the fledgling stages of representing coaches for Creative Artists Agency.
There has been a steady buzz in NFL circles that Schottenheimer, 64, will return to coaching. But it doesn’t seem as though he’s in a rush to do so. He doesn’t need the money -- the Chargers had to pay him $4 million for the remainder of his contract -- and he enjoys the freedom to play golf, spend time with his wife, Pat, and their four grandchildren, and fly up to New York to watch the Jets play. His son, Brian, is their offensive coordinator.
He certainly doesn’t rule out a return to coaching but jokes that if he never had to make another decision in his life, that would be just fine. If a team wants him, they can track him down.
That’s not to say he’s completely at peace with the way things ended in San Diego. He agrees that his relationship with General Manager A.J. Smith was “dysfunctional” -- a word Chargers owner Dean Spanos used in explaining the firing -- but scoffs at the suggestion that his record in the playoffs had anything to do with it.
“That, in my mind, was stated as a matter of convenience,” he said.
Schottenheimer said Smith “didn’t want me there, which is fine. Dean made the ultimate choice, I’m quite sure. . . . It was just a circumstance that was untenable, and Dean solved it.”
Solved isn’t a word heard much around the Chargers these days, and certainly not in the last three weeks. The team’s hard-fought victory over Chicago in the opener was followed by an embarrassing drubbing at New England on national TV, then losses at Green Bay and at home to Kansas City, when the San Diego offense failed to find its rhythm and the defense disintegrated.
The Chargers play at Denver on Sunday, which is always a difficult game for them, and then play host to the Oakland Raiders, who are starting to look like a professional team again.
“I honestly in my heart of hearts believe they’ll be OK this year,” Schottenheimer said of the Chargers. “They’ll be solid. They’re good players, and most of those good players are good people. They’ve got some issues, but hell, who other than New England and maybe Dallas doesn’t have issues?”
He sees the Patriots as a team that could go undefeated this season, and thinks the addition of receiver Randy Moss -- a disgruntled underachiever in Oakland -- was a brilliant move. As for the Patriots’ 38-14 victory over San Diego in Week 2, Schottenheimer called it “as good an offensive performance as I’ve ever seen in my life.”
And he knows how a bitter loss to New England feels. Last January, the visiting Patriots upset the Chargers in a divisional playoff game, taking a sledgehammer to San Diego’s Super Bowl dreams.
Despite winning 200 regular-season games, Schottenheimer has a 5-13 record in the playoffs with six consecutive losses. No coach in NFL history has won so often in the regular season while failing to reach the Super Bowl. According to various reports, Smith privately referred to him as “Coach Roadblock.”
Schottenheimer shrugs off such comments. Only twice in his 20-plus years as coach of the Browns, Chiefs, Redskins and Chargers did his teams have losing seasons. His teams won eight division titles and an impressive 61.3% of their regular-season games.
“People say, ‘Doesn’t talking about your playoff record bother you?’ ” he said. “It doesn’t bother me. It is what it is.
“Look, a world championship at this juncture has eluded Marty Schottenheimer. But hey, I’ll tell you what, we’ve won a lot of games to put ourselves in position to take a crack at it.”
Will the Chargers get that chance this season? No one is running away with the AFC West yet; Denver, Oakland and Kansas City are all 2-2. The next two weeks will be telling.
Back in North Carolina, when he isn’t spending time with family or playing a round of golf, Schottenheimer will be watching the Chargers with interest. And listening.
