Chargers Hope Turner's Past Isn't Prologue

"Can I make it work? We'll find out. But I certainly see myself making it work."

He knows what is being said about him. He realizes people think he is at once the luckiest man in football yet also the worst hire Smith could have made. But he said he ignores such talk. He knows the Chargers are gifted, that he has been handed the keys to a team many believe could drive itself to the Super Bowl and that the only thing getting in its way is the head coach.

In many ways, Turner has ownership of the Chargers' two AFC West titles in the last three seasons. He gave this team its offense back in 2001, when the was the team's offensive coordinator and befriended the club's then-assistant general manager, a man named A.J. Smith, who had dozens of questions about how Turner made the 1990s Cowboys work. Back then, the team had just drafted TCU running back LaDainian Tomlinson. Turner designed the offense around Tomlinson's skills, and 9,176 rushing yards and 117 total touchdowns later, Tomlinson has become the best offensive player in the league.

But even with that legacy lingering on the field behind him, Turner found himself defensive. He complained that the past has not accurately been chronicled, especially his tenure with the Redskins and the memories of his late-season firing in 2000 after a team predicted to win the Super Bowl fizzled out at 7-6.

"We turned that program around in 1999," he said. "We won the division, we were 6-3 when Brad Johnson got hurt. There were a lot of things going on. We had three owners, you know? There's a lot of things that happened there. I took over a team that was 3-13 [in his first season], but we fought through a lot of struggles to get back to where we were a playoff team and a respectable team. I don't want to sound defensive, but that one is not portrayed the way it should be."

Turner was asked about Daniel Snyder, the Redskins owner who seemed to torment him for so many months, and before the question could be finished he shook his head. That time doesn't bother him, he said. That's just what happens in this business he has chosen.

"If I bought a team and I told the guy, 'You got to play this quarterback, he might decide to get another coach,' " Turner said.

Someone asked if Snyder really did that.

"Sure he did," Turner replied.

Another reporter, unfamiliar with the history of Turner's downfall in Washington, asked whom Snyder wanted to play.

"We were playing Brad Johnson through that period of time," Turner said, then paused. "He liked, um, Jeff George."

And the men gathered at the table with Turner broke into uproarious laughter. The coach smirked.