EDITORIAL: The San Diego Chargers are too cheap to win

As I woke up to the news that the 3-2 Baltimore Ravens had fired Offensive Coordinator Marc Trestman yesterday, after a 1 point loss to the Oakland Raiders (on a last-second TD given up by the BAL defense) and a 6 point loss to the Washington Redskins (that the BAL offense almost won in the final minute) I was once again infuriated by the San Diego Chargers.

I wanted to get to the root of this problem. It’s not Drew Kaser, it’s not Mike McCoy, and it’s not Tom Telesco. The root of this problem is that the Spanos family thinks they can run their team like the Dallas Cowboys do.

In reality, I have no problem with that. The Cowboys are semi-dysfunctional at times, but are competitive most years. The difference is that the Cowboys understand that they need help, so they spend big money on their coaching staff year in and year out. The Chargers follow Dallas’ lead in filling their front office with members of the Spanos family, but they don’t follow them in paying the going rate for top-flight football guys to come in and coach the team.

To put it bluntly, the Chargers are too cheap to win. Now, they spend the same on their players as every other team (this is a big reason for parity in the NFL), but they spend significantly less on their front office and coaching staff than most of the league....especially after A.J. Smith, Marty Schottenheimer, Wade Phillips and Cam Cameron left the building.

When you have the owner’s son making the final decisions, trying to build an NFL roster, and nobody with experience around to help mentor him... Well, you’re asking for trouble. You’re asking to be in the same hopeless spot that the team is currently in.

It’s not going to get any easier, Chargers fans. Not until some real football guys, not the guys off the clearance rack, are brought in and given some actual power. Something tells me that’s not going to happen any time soon.

I made a podcast today where I tried my best to talk about the above topic without losing my mind. I hope you enjoy:

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Thanks for listening!