San Diego Chargers: Where Blame Truly Lies

With another season starting out in a less-than-stellar way, the cries we hear this time of year for Norv Turner's head resound anew.

Yes, it is not too late, and 2-3 is not horrible, but even sitting at 2-1 after the Miami win I had a bad feeling about this year. Despite a solid record they just weren’t looking that good, even when winning. 

Chargers fans are passionate about their team, but the anti-Norv sentiment and rally cries in San Diego have taken focus away from the core problematic issue with the Chargers: A.J. Smith .

The conditions are ripe. He is not well liked in the media and is widely viewed as somewhat sour.  He fired a popular head coach in Marty Schottenheimer after a 14-2 regular season and replaced him with someone who is seen as something of a likeable putz. 

I think Norv is a nice guy. I think he's great as an offensive mind under a true head coach. So why was he hired?

Why put a guy with an unimpressive head coaching resume, who has rarely displayed the capacity to inspire or fire up a team, in a position to get his players to play their guts out? It seems Norv’s most appealing quality is that he’s a docile "team player" who isn’t going to undercut Smith or try to overstep his bounds. 

This is only speculation, and in contrast to my previous point, it can also be argued that Turner has earned the right to hold onto his job by way of playoff success in less than stellar circumstances. 

However, with regard to specific personnel decisions through the draft and free agency, Turner has given Chargers fans a more concrete set of evidence to resent him with .

I will give A.J. all the credit in the world for the way he played the Manning/Rivers situation.

The Manning family (When push comes to shove I put a lot of blame on daddy Archie over Eli for this one, but ring or no ring I’m still happier with our big farm boy of a ballchucker ) looked to play chicken and A.J. didn’t blink, coming away with a trade package a good deal better than he should have ended up with . 

Unfortunately, his early drafts put a bit of a protective shield around A.J. that has directed the worst of the under-performing ire away from him and towards Norv and the team itself.

His drafts (being a big "build-from within" sorta guy means this should be his bread and butter) are nothing to speak of.

2009 Draft  

I don’t give this one very much weight simply because the players have had less than half a season to showcase themselves, but we’ll judge what we can.

Larry English has looked solid in the time I’ve seen him, and the more we see of Merriman this year the better the pick seems. Still the guy feels like a late 20’a rather than mid teens sort of pick. 

Beyond that there were two third rounders with interesting potential but big wait-and-see tags, a decent value for the round with Ellison, and a great snag in Byrd in the seventh. (If he never sees the field you lose a seventh round pick. If he makes a full recovery you have a second or third rounder for cheap). 

All in all I’d say they got decent value, but when the issue casting the best light on your draft is one of your pro-bowlers underwhelming this year, it still doesn’t ignite excitement.

Now onto 2004-2008, where we can weigh in with more completion:

2008 Draft

Cason is looking better and better as Cromartie looks worse and worse. It would not surprise many to see him starting at the end of this year or beginning of next, However he still is a guy working his way up the chart and has yet to topple a guy with 10 good games. 

I’d call him more "meets" than "exceeds" expectations. 

After him there's a whole lotta nuthin . 

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