Report: Chargers Will Fire Norv Turner, A.J. Smith After Season
By Josh Hill
For years Norv Turner has eluded being fired like the ugly love child of James Bond, but it appears he has finally run out of places to hide. A report out of San Diego is saying that after this abysmal season for the Chargers is over, Norv Turner and Chargers general manager A.J. Smith will be fired.
The duo have brought a lot of hope to San Diego over the years but have miraculously managed to kill it almost as quickly as it was born. It seems every year was the year the Chargers would finally get it together and make the playoffs, or make a Super Bowl run and every year ended the same — somehting that extends beyond Turner’s tenure with the Chargers.
This means that while Turner deserve a large portion of the blame, A.J. Smith is real overlord in the situation and he’s the one that deservedly so will shoulder the brunt of the blame.
Since taking over as the Chargers G.M. in 2002, Smith has been a polarizing figure, from drafting Eli Manning even when Manning stated he wasn’t ever going to put on a Chargers uniform, to running fan favorites out of town, like Junior Seau, LaDanaian Tomlinson and even Micheal Turner. But perhaps Smith’s most controversial move as G.M. came when he fired the very successful Marty Shottenheimer for not taking the Chargers to a Super despite always making the playoffs.
At the time the move was split in terms of fan approval, but as Norv Turner’s tenure began to more and more resemble that of Shottenheimer’s, it became abundantly clear that the head coach was not the issue in San Diego, the czar making the decision was.
Again, that doesn’t mean Turner and even Shottenheimer are absolved of blame, but Smith is and always has been one of the most hated people in Chargers history.
Smith reportedly has two years and $4 million left on his contract with the Chargers, and Turner would have been entering his last year if he had stayed on. Neither have officially been fired yet, but it’s going to take a miracle for both to save their jobs.
And if anything has been demonstrated, it’s that this particular duo don’t do well in pressure situations.