\u201cWe\u2019re going to look at everything,\u201d\u00a0 Los Angeles Chargers coach Jim Harbaugh said Sunday when asked if he might relieve offensive coordinator Mike McDaniel of his play-calling duties.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s study week as well for owner Dean Spanos and president of football operations John Spanos as they ponder why their 10th year in L.A. and third season with the highly paid Harbaugh has begun so poorly.<\/p>\n
L.A. has lost all six of its games and amassed the league\u2019s second-worst point differential.<\/p>\n
A little advice to the Spanoses:<\/p>\n
Give thought to why it is that in the third season of your club\u2019s past four head-coach cycles, a winning program has come a cropper.<\/p>\n
Under prior L.A. coaches Brandon Staley, Anthony Lynn and the final San Diego Chargers head coach, Mike McCoy, the team began with two winning seasons that each also produced one playoff trip.<\/p>\n
Then in the third year, as if a powerful gravity intervened, each program fell off by five to seven victories.<\/p>\n
Many football coaches view the third year as especially revealing.<\/p>\n
One is Andy Reid, who has gone to six Super Bowls and won three Lombardi trophies.<\/p>\n
\u201cNormally, your third year, it fits,\u201d Reid said a decade ago. \u201cYou kind of establish what you are or what direction you\u2019re going.\u201d<\/p>\n
On the other hand, if the fit isn\u2019t good, the new reality lands hard.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt hits you in the head like it\u2019s a baseball bat,\u201d Reid said.<\/p>\n
The smell of pine tar has returned to Chargers Land.<\/p>\n
Despite the familiar whiff, the team\u2019s braintrust must feel stunned by the 0-6 start.<\/p>\n
Harbaugh brought to the franchise an impressive record of consistent success.<\/p>\n
McCoy, Lynn and Staley new to head coaching when the Spanoses hired them. The well-traveled Harbaugh had won at a high rate for several years at each of his four head-coaching spots \u2014 three college programs and the San Francisco 49ers.<\/p>\n
So it made sense that when L.A. general manager Joe Hortiz was asked two months ago if Harbaugh\u2019s team would avoid the third-year blows that slammed his three predecessors, Hortiz insisted that Harbaugh\u2019s track record exempted him from such speculation.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is Jim\u2019s seventh year as an NFL head coach,\u201d Hortiz noted, while standing at the University of San Diego\u2019s Torero Stadium before a training-camp practice.<\/p>\n
\u201cI couldn\u2019t put that (three-year plummet) together with the previous guys. It\u2019s not apples to apples. It\u2019s not apples to oranges.<\/p>\n
\u201cI wouldn\u2019t call it apples to steaks.\u201d<\/p>\n
Harbaugh\u2019s third seasons at previous stops had produced regular-season records of 11-1, 8-5, 12-4-1 and 8-5. Those efforts came with, in order, USD, Stanford, the 49ers and the University of Michigan.<\/p>\n
In comparison to Harbaugh\u2019s second year in those same programs, the third-year yields were these:<\/p>\n
An identical record, an improvement of three victories, a half-game gain due to not having a tie and a three-game decline.<\/p>\n
So, 0-6 is foreign ground for Harbaugh.<\/p>\n
The Spanoses would no doubt agree that Harbaugh had earned much higher expectations.<\/p>\n
After all, they signed him to a five-year, $75-million contract that ranks in the NFL\u2019s top tier for yearly pay. The investment far exceeded what the owners had committed to Staley, Lynn and McCoy.<\/p>\n
Harbaugh reached the Super Bowl in his second year with the 49ers and returned to the NFC title game in his third year.<\/p>\n
His nine-year run with Michigan culminated in a 15-0 season that brought the club\u2019s first undisputed national title in 75 years.<\/p>\n
With L.A., he began with a two 11-6 seasons.<\/p>\n
The 0-6 start should be prompting many questions within the franchise.<\/p>\n
Among them:<\/p>\n
How much can be blamed on the numerous injuries to standout players, notably star receiver Ladd McConkey and three above-average offensive linemen?<\/p>\n
Why did the team look so ill-prepared at the season\u2019s outset, losing as a heavy favorite in Weeks 1 and 2 opposite rookie head coaches?<\/p>\n
Did Hortiz and Harbaugh err by not devoting more of the club\u2019s considerable salary cap space to the offensive line and pass-catching group?<\/p>\n
Given that McDaniel\u2019s offenses with the Miami Dolphins produced explosive plays and yards after catch, but lacked strong offensive lines, did Harbaugh underestimate how much All-Pro receiver Tyreek Hill, an all-time great, tilted games toward Miami and RPO-adept QB Tua Tagovailoa?<\/p>\n
Why has Justin Herbert, 28, struggled far more in McDaniel\u2019s offense than he did in his first year under four other coordinators? And more than Tagovailoa struggled through his first six games under McDaniel?<\/p>\n
Let\u2019s keep this real.<\/p>\n
The Spanoses must be part of the self-evaluation.<\/p>\n
If they\u2019re serious about winning a Super Bowl, they\u2019ll take into account that their stewardship of the team goes back many fruitless years.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat can I do better?\u201d is a question that should apply to them \u2014 not just Harbaugh, his staff and the players.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cWe\u2019re going to look at everything,\u201d\u00a0 Los Angeles Chargers coach Jim Harbaugh said Sunday when asked if he…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":502178,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[194446,194447,1544,1333,146815,74,76,75],"class_list":["post-502177","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-diego","tag-dean-spanos","tag-john-spanos","tag-justin-herbert","tag-los-angeles-chargers","tag-mike-mcdaniel","tag-san-diego","tag-san-diego-headlines","tag-san-diego-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/502177","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=502177"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/502177\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/502178"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=502177"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=502177"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=502177"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}