The Two Men Responsible for the Destruction of the San Diego Chargers

(Photo by Kevin Terrell/Getty Images)

In 1994, Alex Spanos, owner of the San Diego Chargers, turned over daily operations of the team to his son, Dean Spanos.

Dean was named President/C.E.O. of the organization. During his tenure as President, he has presided over a team that has only had six winning seasons over the past 15 years.

John Butler, former general manager of the Bills, was hired as the general manager of the Chargers in 2001. He took control of a team that had only two winning seasons in the prior seven years.

The hiring of John Butler is the only good thing that Dean Spanos has done since he became President of the team in 1994.

For those of you who don’t recall, Butler was instrumental in helping Bill Polian build the Bills into a team that set a record in the 1990s of four consecutive Super Bowl appearances.

After constructing a team that went to three consecutive Super Bowls, Bill Polian was fired because of a mysterious dispute between Treasurer Jeff Litman and Polian.

John Butler took over as GM in 1993, and the team went to its fourth straight Super Bowl.

During his eight seasons with the Bills, they made five playoff appearances. Like Polian, Butler had an uncanny knack for recognizing talent.

In 2001, his first year with the Chargers, he drafted running back LaDainian Tomlinson and quarterback Drew Brees. Too many people credit Smith with these draft choices.

In 2002, after the firing of head coach Mike Riley, Butler made his next brilliant move: He hired coach Marty Schottenheimer.

Marty opened the 2002 season with four straight wins. He is the only head coach in Chargers history to do so. Marty went on to lead the team to a record of 8-8. Given that in 2000 they went 1-15, and in 2001, went 5-11, this was certainly an improvement.

Sadly, John never got to see the fruits of his labor pay off. He succumbed to cancer in April 2003.

In his determination to destroy the team, Spanos replaced Butler with former pro personnel director for the Chargers, and Bills assistant, A.J. Smith.

Spanos gave complete control of the team to a man whose reputation as an egomaniac preceded him.

He has also been criticized as a hardball negotiator, whose dealing with players has hurt the team, as many times as it has helped it.

Smith’s approach to management might be summed up as, “My way or the highway!”

This attitude, as well as his mixed bag of draft picks, has taken a team that should have won a Super Bowl by now, and slowly run it into the ground.

Smith's inability to get along with legendary Coach Marty Schottenheimer is well documented.

The first public signs of the problems in their working relationship, started to appear in the infamous parting of ways with Drew Brees. 

Smith, the supposed genius GM, didn’t even slap Brees with a franchise tag so that the Chargers could at least get some kind of compensation for a Pro Bowl quarterback.

Instead, they just let him go onto the market as a free agent.

The reality of the situation is that Brees was never Smith’s guy. In fact, Smith never liked Brees and wanted to get rid of him much sooner.

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