Tuesday, January 15, 2013

BOLT ANALYSIS: THE YOUTH MOVEMENT


Hey All. I know you’ve missed me. The ANALYSIS has been busy with minor issues such as work, holidays, and life in general. Nothing as provocative or thrilling as watching and/or covering your San Diego Bolts. Actually, I must say it has been nice to watch football without the sad specter of another playoff-free season hovering over me. A pretty amazing past weekend of football games, eh? Seattle coming back with a massive 4th quarter only to fall in the end.....Mighty Denver somehow giving up a 70 yard TD play at the end to fall to the Ravens....the new-look 49ers pulverizing the Packers...and the Patriots...ever steady with another home game to get to the Bowl. All good stuff. A few things I noticed over the weekend:

1) winning teams have good offensive lines.

2) mobile quarterbacks rule!

3) good teams find a way.

Man, if we could only get one of those three things in our Fall Stocking. I would be happy.

But, enough about that. The big news all season (covered by ANALYSIS COACH-WATCH 7000) was would the Chargers fire Norv?  More importantly, would the Chargers fire AJ? The answer was a much needed..”Yes” to both.  The search for a GM did not take long, with the Bolts passing over their in-house guy Jimmy Raye, and picking up 40 year old Tom Tolesco out of Indianapolis. The youngest GM in Charger history. A slight departure from the 63 year old AJ..would you say? Ironically, Jimmy Raye was picked up in Indy. The coaching carousel was fast and furious with the Chargers, as they were linked to interviews with Lovie Smith, Ken Whisenhunt, Jay Gruden (not Jon), Gus Bradley, Mike McCoy, and a couple of others. When both the Broncos and the Seahawks lost last week, it became clear that McCoy and Bradley were the two frontrunners. Shortly after the interview, McCoy became our next head coach.

I will not make any big, sweeping statements about the guy. I have no idea, nor do any prognosticators. He has never been a head coach before...he has been with Denver for 4 years and prior to that Carolina. He worked (and somehow won) with Tim Tebow and Kyle Orton at Quarterback prior to Manning. Here are some tidbits:

Jake Hester (currently a Bronco): “You are going to be happy with this choice.”

Dante Rosario (formerly a Bronco): “He is all business, but he is a guy you can talk to”.

Random Blogger from Denver: “I don’t think he is head coaching material”.

Another Denver comment: “Peyton Manning runs the offense, not McCoy”.

Kevin Acee after McCoy’s press conference: “He sure commands a room, this guy can communicate”.

Unnamed NFL Source: “the Chargers hit a home run with these two”.

Philip Rivers: “This is the guy I wanted”.

Look people, I don’t care what these guys have done. Let’s just watch what they do. The Spanos family has sent a clear message with these hires. Two 40-year olds? That is so very Anti-Charger.  The message is, “The Chargers are going to Change”.  I for one, think this is a good development.  Bringing in fresh ideas, a new look at the roster, some optimism and hope, and some experimentation? That all sounds good. These guys could be utterly overmatched and fail miserably. Sure. But, the fact that the Spanos Crew is hiring two guys who have NOT been there before tells me he is OK with giving them a prolonged chance to succeed. This is an acknowledgement that the team is not close. It is a team that needs to rebuild.

Having two young guys try and inject a new tradition of toughness and winning ways into the franchise. The ANALYSIS is OK with that.

Now, enjoy the offseason. I won’t bug you again until the DRAFT.

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