Chargers-Bears Final Score: San Diego loses 22-19 to Chicago, needs to fire Mike McCoy

The San Diego Chargers' season is now, officially, over. At 2-7, they have no shot at the playoffs. After losses to the 1-6 Ravens and the 2-5 Bears, the Chargers are clearly one of the three worst teams in the league.

The story of this game really was Jason Verrett. With him in the game, Jay Cutler and the Chicago Bears were moving the ball but not getting it into the end zone. He was doing just enough to shut down #1 WR Alshon Jeffery, culminating with an interception that was returned for a defensive touchdown. Unfortunately, two plays later, Verrett aggravated a groin injury and never came back into the game. From there on out, the Bears had no problem scoring.

Philip Rivers played well, but after losing Malcom Floyd to a shoulder injury early, he struggled to consistently move the chains or put up points (12 points from the offense against a terrible defense is a bad showing by San Diego).

Melvin Gordon played terribly, again. He averaged less than 3 yards per carry (31 rush yards on 11 carries) and still has never been into the end zone as an NFL player. He continues to drag the team down whenever he's on the field. He was outplayed by both Danny Woodhead and Donald Brown, not to mention young Bears' RB Jeremy Langford.

Those could be the stories. Or the stories could be about the how and why of the Chargers' insane rash of injuries. However, I'd rather talk about the upcoming bye week.

Bye weeks are typically when bad teams fire their head coaches, and it's time for the Chargers to do exactly that. While they may be helping their draft position by losing all of these games, what the team actually needs is to not fall into a rut and lose a lot of games in a row. They need to see if they can get this thing pointed in the right direction.

At this point, there's no reason to continue employing Mike McCoy. The players don't love him, the media doesn't love him, and the Chargers won't be bringing him back for next season. This would be a good time to give a guy like Mike Nolan a shot to run the team for the second half of the season, evaluate how the roster performs under better leadership and coaching, and then begin the overhaul of the team in the upcoming offseason.

Think about it this way: If you were doing the hiring of a head coach all over again, would you still hire Mike McCoy? Probably not. Is there any way that McCoy can keep his job for next season? Probably not. Then it's time to make the call. Pull the plug on McCoy's tenure in San Diego and start the evaluation process for the rest of the year. At this point, winning and losing games no longer matters.