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Chargers Hope Turner's Past Isn't Prologue
Norv Turner has a 58-82-1 record as a head coach with the Washington Redskins and Oakland Raiders. He led the Redskins to one playoff appearance.
(Lenny Ignelzi - AP)
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Someone else asked Turner if he had learned anything from his seasons with the Redskins, and later his 11- and 12-loss seasons in Oakland. He smiled again.
"I'm excited to have a field goal kicker who goes 3 for 3 and hits a 50-yarder," he said, in reference to the many special teams failures of his Redskins years. "Because if I had him in Washington, we wouldn't be having these discussions. Yeah, you can say, 'What did you learn?' Yeah. Learn to have a field goal kicker."
Smith and Schottenheimer never got along and rarely spoke the last couple of years. Smith's standard reply to all queries about the previous coach is, "The views of how to win a world championship between myself and Coach Schottenheimer were galaxies apart."
The general manager never appreciated Schottenheimer's rigidity, nor the seemingly panicked decisions he made in the most important games. He has longed for someone creative enough to design a great game plan for his collection of stars, but also someone confident enough in that plan to not abandon it when things are tough. He wants a coach who will trust that Tomlinson will do something spectacular even if he has only 30 yards through three quarters. The best ones, Smith is convinced, always find a way to win.
Smith was asked how he possibly could have worked with Schottenheimer if the two didn't talk and had such different visions.
"I think it's over now, isn't it?" Smith said. "I think at zero and two we didn't have much success in the postseason. And there were other situations that I did not like during the season as far as games. One in particular, early in the year, on the East Coast [when Schottenheimer didn't throw on several long-yardage situations in a loss at Baltimore]. There are lots of reasons."
Then the general manager changed the subject. Enough about him and Schottenheimer. What happened with Schottenheimer in Washington? How come Snyder gave him a four-year contract the year after he fired Turner, yet Schottenheimer was gone after a season when coach and owner could not see eye-to-eye?
"To me that's a remarkable story, this is back burner to that, it really is," he said.
He left the thought dangling, as if Snyder and Schottenheimer's feud somehow justified his own battles with the same former coach. Much the way Turner saw his own vindication in Snyder's insistence on playing George.
Maybe now, with one of the NFL's most talented teams, each has found the man who is right for the other.
