Revisionist History, Marty Schottenheimer was a Hall of Fame Coach.

The San Diego Chargers won 14 games last year behind a coach who has a .613 winning percentage. According to reports after week 3 of this season Schottenheimer was apparently a hall of fame coach whose accomplishments made it ridiculous that he should be fired. Unfortunately for Marty that was not the case. After the playoffs last year in which they secured a bye in the wild card round and then lost in the divisional round to the Patriots Marty was fired. Some seem to think the only reason he was fired because he couldn't get along with GM A.J. Smith and that Smith, despite being the one to bring in all the talent on the roster, is now on the hook if Norv Turner doesn't work out.

Now I'm not trying to say hiring Norv Turner was a good idea, he hasn't been a good head coach anywhere so there is/was no reason to believe he would be in San Diego.However lets not let the Chargers poor start blur reality.These same people who think it's all Smiths fault and he never should have fired Marty seem to forget the fact that part if not most of reason for Schottenheimer's departure was that he hasn't won a playoff game in a decade... never mind in his tenure with the Chargers.

You play to win the game! and that game is the Super Bowl. If you're not trying to win the Super Bowl you might as well be playing for the number one draft pick. Sticking with Schottenheimer meant sticking with a coach whose career record is 5-13 in his career in the postseason or slightly under 28 percent. Thats not good, you might in fact say its awful. Moving away from the numbers I'm pretty sure if you ask any fan of the Chiefs or Chargers and they'll tell you every big game Marty ever coached they'd be close games and sooner or later Marty would do something to choke away the game. Basically you were not winning the super bowl with this guy... you would have been lucky to even make it there considering he never did.

So Smith rolled the dice, he took a chance and it may not work out, but a chance needed to be taken. So i don't want to hear any more about Marty Schottenheimer and his 14-2 record last year. He won the exact same thing Norv's won this year... nothing.