Marty fired!
Marty Schottenheimer was fired as coach of the San Diego Chargers by team president Dean Spanos.
Schottenheimer coached the Chargers to a 14-2 regular season and an AFC West Division championship. But San Diego was knocked out of the AFC playoffs by New England, 24-21, on January 14.
The bitter loss, in which the Chargers made numerous mental mistakes, fueled rumors that Schottenheimer, despite the tremendous regular season and one year remaining on his contract, wouldn't survive January. Not only did he survive, he was offered a one-year extension to his deal. But he turned down the extension.
In the three weeks since, the Chargers have lost four key assistant coaches, including both coordinators.
Schottenheimer has feuded with General Manager A.J. Smith. Spanos called it a "dysfunctional situation.
" The process of dealing with these coaching changes convinced me that we simply could not move forward with such a dysfunction between our head coach and general manager,'' Spanos said.
Schottenheimer is 200-126-1 in 21 seasons as a head coach but only 5-13 overall in the playoffs. He was 47-33 in five seasons with the Chargers -- including 35-13 the last three seasons -- with two division titles but both times the club lost in the first round of the playoffs.