moochman wrote:Boston definitely doesn't seem to be fitting in to Marty's micro-management style system. Whod've thought that it would be different in SD than it was in Arizona! This has disaster written all over it and given that the Chargers record will suffer most, Marty will be the one to lose his job. Marty you can fight the player, but you can't fight the contract!
I really need to get this off my chest as a former Charger fan. I turned in my fan badge the day Marty was hired, and I feel completely justified still.
At the time of the hire, the Chargers had just been plagued by some seasons that put even the Bengals to shame & were starting to pick up the pieces in the post Ryan Leaf era. But they did have a defense and an offensive coordinator in Norv Turner who was managing to gain yards with a terrible group of skill players and then succesfully using Tomlinson in his rookie season.
Enter Marty - a great coach if you want to get a team to 8-8 or 9-7 but a guy who never had playoff success. I guess the Chargers wanted respectability. (There's a whole other issue with a new stadium vote combined with some awful City politics and the awful stadium renovation deal and a seat guarantee. Chargers' main priority is not winning a Super Bowl but winning a 2006 ballot measure.)
But Marty's autocratic style is unnecessary and his approach to football seems antiquated. The Chargers do not have the talent on the offensive line (even before injuries this year) to be unimaginative, plodding and off-tackle left & right (aka Martyball).
I really would have loved to have seen Tomlinson and Brees and a defense of Harrison, Wiley & Parella all turned over to Norv Turner, Marvin Lewis or Tony Dungy. Oh well, we'll never know.
... in my opinion, of course - but that should always go without saying.
www.bigfellas.net (home of the golf rap "On The Green")
In fairness to Marty, Boston is now 0-2 as far as meshing with a coach's style. He just needs to find the NFL coach that doesn't have a problem with players leaving during the game to call people on his cell phone, skip team meetings, tell the coaching staff they want 10 days off, set their own rules, bring women back to the hotel after curfew Sunday morning, etc.
The brain-trust in Arizona must be loving every minute of this.
You're right about Boston being an ass and I don't know what I'd expect anybody to do with him at this point. But while this isn't a defense of Boston - guys like Gruden and Mooch seem much better at dealing with prima donna athletes, which is a growth industry in pro sports.
9er Fan wrote:In fairness to Marty, Boston is now 0-2 as far as meshing with a coach's style.
It just seems like there are lot of people like you who take the "in fairness to Marty" approach and treat him with respect as a classic "football man", a respect that I don't think that he's earned, at least in his 3 stints since the Browns.
I guess what I'm trying to say about Schottenheimer's generally favorable reputation is that the emperor has no clothes. 5-11 playoff record in 18 years as a head coach. Very good at turning around an underachieving team with lots of talent, but burns out with his old-school (read: hardass) approach. Think the Dick Williams or Larry Bowa of football, perhaps Butch Davis is another NFL example.
Just don't get why Marty gets the benefit of the doubt, and why the Chargers hired him in the first place. I still think it has more to do with the management wanting a serviceable record (8-8 or 9-7 good enough) in the short term to allow them to win a City vote for a new stadium. I think it's going to backfire and after last year's 8-8 this team is going to get a lot worse before it gets better.
... in my opinion, of course - but that should always go without saying.
www.bigfellas.net (home of the golf rap "On The Green")
Sounds like Marty would do better to leave the NFL and go to college . . . Where the Coach is actually in charge of the team and is allowed to enforce his rules without criticism, where cushioning an underperforming primadonna's ego isn't job #1, and where the team is still larger than the individual.
You know, he kinda reminds me of another 'old-school=hardass' 'sweep left, sweep right' coach --
Vince Lombardi
and all they did was name a trophy after him . . .
Hey "Guest" (I'd PM you but you didn't give me that option),
I'd love for sports to be like they were in 1968, too. They aren't. Let's face it.
And I forgot about all of the 4-6 defenses and zone blitz packages that Lombardi's "sweep left, sweep right" used to face. I'm not insinuating that Lombardi wouldn't have countered the modern defense he was an offensive genius. As much as the word "genius" is overused in our society, has anybody ever used that term about Marty? He's a solid, middle-of-the-road member of the NFL coaching fraternity.
... in my opinion, of course - but that should always go without saying.
www.bigfellas.net (home of the golf rap "On The Green")
Challie you will have to excuse my ignorance on this cause well I don't have the knowledge of where Marty came from or what he did or didn't do. I am liking what is being said though I was wondering if you can fill in a bit more like past history. I am not into stats persay I can look those up. More about his style, is his doings in SD the same as in the past is he trying to be that "college" coach that thinks he can rule adult players that get payed to play not playing for there schooling.
PS the reason for my no knowledge on this is relativly new to the whole NFL thing. I am gong to kick myself for this being canadian it is all hockey up here so it is tough to know the history of NFl espaecial since I have only been doing FF for 5 years.
I've been spending way too much time on the boards today; when's the over/under on me being fired?
Marty's disciplinarian approach doesn't bother me per se - a good football team runs itself like a military unit. But unfortunately in the Schottenheimer bundle comes a stupendous lack of imagination.
His defenses (especially in KC) are very conservative, actually that's a good word to describe everything he does during the game. Conservative can be good (attn Mike Martz: kick a damn field goal once in a while), but it's also how you beat teams like the Bears, Bengals and Cardinals and it's how you generally can't rise up and beat teams like TB, STL, NE, OAK, TEN, etc. Now that I think of it, that probably explains Marty's career playoff record.
In thinking about his whole career, it is interesting that he's rarely had a QB that allows for throwing downfield much. (Kosar, Montana, Brees, etc.)
And when I say he's conservative offensively that doesn't mean that he needs to do more flea flickers. Lombardi was running the ball all the time, but the Packer sweep was a beautiful thing with pulling guards and guys who trap block between the tackles. Marty at his most adventurous is the bootleg which he had Gannon run to death (almost literally) in KC.
Until Marty gets a set of lineman like the Hogs of '83, he should retire the three yards in a cloud of dust philosophy & the play-it-straight 4-3 defenses cause it didn't work for him & Daniel Snyder a couple of years ago and it's not working for him with the current Chargers.
That's my two cents. Hey, it's lunchtime here. Sweet!
... in my opinion, of course - but that should always go without saying.
www.bigfellas.net (home of the golf rap "On The Green")
A lot of good points on both sides . . . I NEVER called ol'Marty a genius by the way. However, having followed football since birth and having played as a kid at the high school level for fun and in the military as an adult for the pride of my unit (in the same league as a guy you may have heard of: Denver's Mike Andersen) I stand by my statement: Football must always be about the TEAM . . . no individual is greater than the group. And the Coach, as leader, must do what is best for the team and maintain discipline -- primadonnas poison the heart and soul of what a team is . . . at any level.
Also, in 17 years Marty has only been under .500 once and has 9 double-digit winning seasons. Far from genius, far from schmuck.
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by Challie » Thu Sep 25, 2003 9:20 am 
