I live in New Jersey and I'm a San Diego Chargers fan. I never lived in San Diego, so there's really no reason for me to like the Chargers, a perennial struggling franchise that is never on national television, and even less so in the New York market where I'm subjected to the Giants and Jets year after year. I'm not sure the pain of another Charger defeat is worse than the pain of New York teams being the only televised football, when both have awful seasons.
But obviously that hasn't been the case this year since the Jets just beat the Chargers in the first round of the NFL playoffs. And in case you're wondering, I am aware of the ability to get a satellite to watch these games, but I am probably too cheap, and would be more likely to head to a bar to watch them.
And when they signed Marty Schottenheimer as coach, I wasn't sure I wanted to watch all those games. Now I know it's way too easy to jump on a guy who just lost in the playoffs and call for his head on a plate. Well, then again, it isn't so easy when the coach has amounted to a 12-4 record after a 4-12 season. But I'll do it anyway.
Many people who have satellite television with the NFL Season Ticket package may still be unaware of the Chargers team and their coach. A 12-4 record is hard to argue with. But if you don't watch those games, the 12-4 record is all you see. You don't see the series of plays called by the coach.
Hence, my problem with Marty.
Marty for years has played something called “MartyBall”. You can throw a hyphen in there or just make the “b” lowercase, but it still doesn't change a conservative system that makes George W. Bush look like he's running the “run and shoot” offense. Wow, bad example, or just a bad, yet unintended pun.
Anyway, Marty must be getting somewhat better, since Drew Brees number of pass attempts is larger than his shoe size, or more fairly has put up good numbers this year. But some of this could be the result of a highly conservative team consistently being behind in games, and being forced to throw the ball, with the good fortune of having personnel that are able to respond to this challenge. But the offense in San Diego does have more balance than Marty's Kansas City teams. But the still often conservative, or if not just plain unimaginative playcalls at times left San Diego tonight down 10 points in the 4th quarter with no choice but to go to the air.
It's the situational playcalling that kills me. When the Chargers were driving for that touchdown to tie the game in the 4th quarter, there were passes to Gates and Parker that opened up the field. Sure LaDanian Tomlinson was there, but his effectiveness was based more on balance than dominance. The Jets know he's good, and they know keeping him from successfully running the ball down after down increases their chances of winning. They also know Schottenheimer would love to call his number every down.
But once the Chargers reached the 10-yard line, Martyball re-appeared, in what would be a great time to be using Tomlinson as a decoy, they run the ball up the middle. On third and goal, they do this again, they did nothing to draw the defenders out wide, nothing to show a different look, In fact they even put a receiver in motion to the middle of the field to bring another defender closer to the ball. That doesn't work playing Madden Football on a Playstation 2 and it certainly didn't work tonight. No first down, and the only thing that gave the Chargers a second chance was a dumb roughing the pass penalty on the Jets.
Then Marty grants Drew Brees the opportunity throw again to Antonio Gates, and the games is tied and we move on to overtime.
Chargers get the ball, 3 and out, punt, stop the Jets convincingly and get the ball again. They begin a nice drive with some balanced plays, getting the balls in the hands of mostly Tomlinson and Gates, with mostly pass plays, but a few runs to keep the defense honest.
Then they get to around the Jets' 35 or 30 yard line, and Martyball returns in its ugliest form. There is no need to run out clock since it is sudden death overtime, so there is plenty of time to get to the end zone. On three successive downs, the Chargers run those running plays that never have any chance of working. You can just see the formation, its the run the balll into your own line, but don't have them make any holes, or pull, or do stunts, or anything that might actually help your running back move the ball down the field. That formation. The one where the blocking back's job is to run into the line and clog up the only opening that might be there. They run the kind of run plays where you just use up clock not wanting to turnover the ball, so you can get your punter on the field.
Add to this a rookie field goal kicker in his first playoff game looking at a 40+ yard field goal which is never a gimme, on a wet field. When you have a team that's driving like a locomotive down the field, throw some more coal in the fire, don't pour water on it. Even Madden suggested taking one shot at the end zone. Throw high percentage passes off play fakes, but don't stop your team who's been consistently driving down the field since the end of regulation, against an exhausted New York Jet defense, from winning the game.
I watched in the Eighties' the playoff game where Marty went conservative to give Dan Marino and the Dolphins a chance to knock him out of the playoffs. I've seen some of the Kansas City losses during his tenure as well. I can't argue with his Won/Loss records in the regular season, or that he must prepare and coach players into winning form. But I also don't see the players themselves being the ones who lose these games, they are not the ones calling the shots. A simple run play that commonly gains about 3 yards, will probably still gain 3 yeards if its well executed.
This also reminds me of Jim Mora, who would get teams into playoff contention, only to lose the playoff games because of conservative playcalling and prevent defense.
This is the part where I realize this post may be getting tiresome, and I'm certainly sick of it right now, because I'm sick of thinking about losing to the Jets tonight. So, no links because I'm tired, we'll end this here.