The San Diego Chargers are looking for a new football coach after the sudden firing of Marty Schottenheimer on Monday, Feb. 12, who posted a 47-33 record during his four year tenure with the NFL team.Under Schottenheimer, the Chargers made it to the playoffs twice failing in both appearances in disappointing fashion. In 2005, San Diego lost to the underdog New York Jets in overtime and lost to the Patriots this year. One major knock on Schottenheimer is his unimpressive 5-13 playoff record which didn’t help his already strained relationship with team General Manager A.J. Smith. In NFL and media circles, the Chargers were considered the team to beat in the NFL in 2006 and were odds-on favorites to get to the Super Bowl and win.
Another reason for his firing included losing assistants Cam Cameron, Wade Phillips, Rod Chudzinski and Greg Manusky who left for better jobs with other teams. Cameron and Phillips got jobs as head coaches with Miami and Dallas. Bet on the NFL at Sportbet.com and receive a 50% Sign Up Bonus
“Our fans deserve to know what changed for me over the last month,” said team president Dean Spanos on Monday. “When I decided to move ahead with Marty Schottenheimer in mid-January, I did so with the expectation that the core of his fine coaching staff would remain intact. Unfortunately, that did not prove to be the case, and the process of dealing with these coaching changes convinced me that we simply could not move forward with such dysfunction between our head coach and general manager. In short, this entire process over the last month convinced me beyond any doubt that I had to act to change this untenable situation and create working at a championship level. I expect exactly that from our entire Charger organization in 2007.”
Since his firing is without cause, the Chargers will owe Schottenheimer over $4 million from his current contract.
