The San Diego Chargers Lack Motivation to Win

The San Diego Chargers have one person and one person only to blame for their current predicament…AJ Smith.

Now I’ve never been an “AJ Basher."  I never agreed with some of his decisions—for instance, firing Marty Schottenhiemer some years back, but I always recognized his role in building this franchise into one of the best teams in football.  But it cannot be overstated how much responsibility he must shoulder now for the poor performance of the Chargers this year!

What the San Diego Chargers are feeling right now is the hangover effect of losing one of the best team motivators and coaches of all time in Schottenheimer.  AJ Smith rolled the dice a few years back and got rid of the man that the players wanted to play for in favour of his very own yes man.

But AJ Smith either forgot or never actually considered that even though you're dealing with professional players, man management and motivation are key factors in achieving and maintaining a winning mentality on your team. 

Each individual can motivate himself to play at high level but it’s the ability to motivate all the players together as a TEAM, according to a common game plan to achieve a common goal that I am talking about.

It's all very well to have some of the best players in the league, but if you can’t motivate them all to win together, it's all for nothing.  Why do you think we have “upsets” in games?  I mean if one team is better than the other, they should win, right? 

Well it’s not that simple…because an inferior team can always get the better of an opponent if it’s properly motivated in the NFL.  This is because all 32 teams are not that far apart from each other in terms of talent.  What sets them apart is coaching and motivation.

The Chargers had the right mix with Marty Schottenhiemer.  He was never a technically sound coach in any particular area except maybe in the area of coaching linebackers but his strength was always in getting his players revved up on Sundays and primed to go out and give their very best. 

Why else have the Chargers dominated the Raiders during his tenure?  Because it’s a divisional rivalry and these types of games are filled with emotion and that’s were Marty thrived!

A head coach, in my opinion, has to be able to motivate his team to win every game it plays.  The offensive and defensive coordinators are in charge of designing plays and other technical details as they fit into the overall game plan…it’s the head coach that must bring all those elements together and make it work on gameday.

Norv Turner is a great technical coach and would make a great offensive coordinator but he lacks all the elements that make a head coach.  He lacks man management skills, leadership and most of all, emotion.  All these factors combine to create his least strongest attribute which is communication!

Even though the Chargers' record this year is abysmal at 4-8, they are not that far away from turning it all around and I expect that the team can return to their dominating best next year but not with Norv Turner as the coach.

The best option for the Chargers moving forward is to demote Turner to offensive coordinator and hire back Marty Schottenhiemer who I predict would be welcomed back by the players with open arms!  As this is also highly unlikely…another head coach needs to be appointed.  This appointment needs to be someone who is an emotional leader and motivator of men. Perhaps a Mike Singletary-type character.

Let's hope that AJ Smith cares more about the Chargers organization than his own ego and goes about setting things right again!