Tom Telesco is (Probably) Your New Chargers General Manager

Hey, remember all of those reports that Jimmy Raye was a shoe-in for the San Diego Chargers' open General Manager position? You know, the ones that I've been blatantly disregarding because they seemed like they were coming from Jimmy Raye himself? Turns out that they're probably not true. Even if they were, there's a lot of parts and they are moving.

The San Diego Chargers have wrapped up their search for a general manager and plan to make a call soon, according to club sources.

San Diego director of player personnel, Jimmy Raye, has long been considered the favorite, but Indianapolis Colts director of player personnel Tom Telesco is now thought to be right there with him as Chargers president Dean Spanos prepares to make his decision.

Telesco had a second interview with the Chargers in San Diego on Tuesday, according to a source apprised of his schedule. The Jets put in a request this week to interview Telesco for their open GM position, scrambling after losing candidate Atlanta Falcons director of player personnel David Caldwell to the Jacksonville Jaguars on Tuesday, and the Colts granted them permission. But with talks getting more serious with San Diego, Telesco pushed back that interview.

Source

Ready for a list of reasons as to why that's especially meaningful? Here goes.

1. You do not announce that you've just hired a new GM, an internal guy, the day after flying in another candidate from Indianapolis for an interview. Why? Because it makes the candidate, in this case Tom Telesco, look really bad. It makes it look like you were willing to consider him enough to bring him out, but he was not the least bit impressive in that second interview.
2. If you're flying Telesco out at all, it seems silly to not hire him. He had an interview scheduled with the New York Jets (New York is east of Indianapolis, in case you weren't aware), so you have him fly all the way out to San Diego just to tell him "Hey, thanks for trying." How do you think that makes the team look? Rather unprofessional, if you ask me. Do you think a few potential Head Coaching candidates might be turned off by the hiring process of the Chargers' brass when they see that?
3. Jimmy Raye has had zero interviews around the league for any of the open GM positions, outside of an interview with the San Diego Chargers. He doesn't seem like he's in a hurry to leave. Now, the team could hire Telesco and maybe keep Raye and come away with both of their final two candidates, or they could hire Raye while embarrassing Telesco and make the entire Ron Wolf ordeal seem like a sham (not to mention a waste of time and money).
4. Telesco isn't stupid. He knows the GM positions are filling up. The Cardinals promoted Steve Keim, the Jaguars hired David Caldwell, and Andy Reid seems to have someone from the Packers pegged as his GM with the Chiefs. That leaves 2-3 openings with a lot more than 2-3 GM candidates. Telesco would be an absolute fool to postpone his interview with the Jets unless he had been offered the job with the Chargers already.

I know, I know. You're saying "Other teams might not do those things, but the Chargers definitely would." I'm aware that you hate Dean Spanos and think he's a buffoon. In response, allow me to point you in the direction of Mr. Ron Wolf. Ron Wolf is not a buffoon and he does not publicly embarrass people. His reputation is all he has in the NFL and he needs to protect it.

So, you see, the Chargers hiring Tom Telesco away from the Indianapolis Colts seems like a sure thing at this point. My guess is that the questions in his second interview were "Would you like the job?" and "Who were you thinking about for Head Coach?"