FanHouse TedCottrell

On Wednesday night, the Las Vegas Locomotives trounced the New York Sentinels, 41-10, to remain in contention for a berth in the UFL Championship Game on Nov. 27.

While the game wasn't all that compelling -- nor was it, shall we say, must-see TV -- it was an important night for many on the field. The UFL concludes its season just in time for players to join NFL clubs for their stretch runs.

Charles Davis, a tight end for the Sentinels, views his UFL opportunity differently, remarking as if he searched for the gig on craigslist.

"I didn't have a job and I love playing football, so that was probably the draw for me," said Davis, who is pictured right as a fifth-round pick of the Pittsburgh Steelers in 2006.

Fair enough. The league, though, hopes for a much higher profile despite everything stacked against it.

On Tuesday we noted a report that former Stanford, Notre Dame and Washington head coach Tyrone Willingham had accepted a new job as an assistant coach in the upstart United Football League. But now it appears that Willingham won't be a UFL assistant after all.

The Chargers, a disappointment at 3-5, have decided to make a change to their coaching staff. Ted Cottrell is out as defensive coordinator and he'll be replaced by linebackers coach Ron Rivera. Cottrell got dealt a bad hand with the injury to Shawne Merriman but, regardless of injuries, 28th in the league in yards allowed is reason enough to make a change.

Rivera had success running Chicago's defense and interviewed for head coaching jobs after the team's trip to the Super Bowl in 2007. He didn't get those jobs and found himself out of his old one when Lovie Smith moved in a different direction.

More important than either Cottrell's failings or Rivera's resume, however, is what this move signals for Norv Turner's future with the Bolts. The team isn't out of the running in the mediocre AFC West but they are underachieving and missing the playoffs could have dire consequences for the head coach. Getting rid of the coordinator will take the focus off Turner for a moment or two but if there is no turnaround after this week's bye, it's hard to see how Turner will survive for a third season on the San Diego sideline.

Another week, another must-win game for the Chargers. At 2-3, they've had a disappointing start to the season, though, to be fair, it hasn't been entirely their fault. And in reality, San Diego could just as easily be 4-1.

But as Bill Parcells is fond of saying, you are what your record says you are. And right now, five weeks into this thing, the Chargers are two back in the loss column to the division leading Broncos, and have a pretty tough schedule going forward.

With that in mind, maybe Norvell can motivate the troops for tonight's matchup against the Matt Cassel-tastic Patriots with the latest awesomeness from Nike.



Sorry, Ted Cottrell, Troy Polamalu not included.

via Shutdown Corner

Good news: CHARGERS ARE GOING TO THE AFC CHAMPIONSHIP GAME! NORV TURNER HAS BEEN VINDICATED!!

Bad news: The opening line for next week's San Diego-New England game will probably be somewhere around 20 points, undoubtedly the largest in AFC Championship history. And it could be more; the Jaguars were +13.5 underdogs against the Patriots and are arguably a better team than the Chargers. Worse, San Diego could have three less-than-healthy starters in Foxboro: Antonio Gates, LaDainian Tomlinson, and Philip Rivers.

So, yeah, congratulations to the Chargers for pulling off the biggest upset of the postseason. Rivers, who now has no good knees, still managed to look more like Peyton Manning than Peyton Manning did. LdT spent most of the game on the sidelines nursing a knee injury, and Gates played with a bum toe, but he was mostly ineffective. That won't cut it next Sunday.

Last off-season, there wasn't a lot of high-fiving going on among Chargers fans when they found out Norvell would replace Marty Schottenheimer. And disbelief turned to despair when Norv Turner named Ted Cottrell as his defensive coordinator (replacing Wade Phillips, who had accepted the Cowboys head-coaching job).

San Diego had some rough patches during the first half of the season, none more representative of their struggles than the Week 2 beatdown in New England. After the game, Cottrell explained how Tom Brady exploited his defense to the tune of 25 of 31 passing for 279 yards and three touchdowns.

"Couple mistakes they were able to find," Cottrell said when he stopped laughing. "A good quarterback can find when something goes wrong. It's all correctable, and we've gotten it corrected."

Two weeks later, after San Diego stumbled to a 1-3 start, Cottrell's problem-correcting skills were questioned. Specifically, if the defensive play-calling, more than execution, was responsible for the slow start.

Following Sunday night's victory despite themselves, Yahoo.com's Mike Silver explains what everybody with just a passing interest in organized football already knows (everybody save A.J. Smith): Norvell Turner ain't head coachin' material.

"We have the best running back in football, and yet we don't sense a commitment to the running game," one veteran said Sunday night. "Last year, teams put eight in the box against us, and we ran anyway – and found a way to be successful. That set up the play action, which fueled our passing game. This year, it seems like we run because we're supposed to; it balances out our passing attack. But it's not like being physical at the point of attack and running the ball is our personality."

Silver writes that "players don't respond to his leadership or motivational tactics, if you can call them that. They view his sideline demeanor as frazzled and indecisive."

I'd say that's an understatement. Not only is the running game suffering, but Philip Rivers looks like a high school freshman just called up to the varsity squad because of injuries. But it's not just Norv taking the heat; defensive coordinator Ted Cottrell has a few fingers pointing his way too:

As a disgruntled Chargers fan, it's easy to just point to Norvell and say, "yep, there's your problem, right there." I'm not saying that that's wrong, it glosses over the details of why, exactly, San Diego is such a train wreck a season after winning 14 games.

In today's San Diego Union-Tribune, Kevin Acee takes a look at the details of the teams' 1-3 start. Specifically, is defensive coordinator Ted Cottrell mismanaging the play-calling?

After getting embarrassed by the Patriots on national television, Cottrell declared the defense fixed. Well, maybe it looked that way during that week, but the same problems surfaced on subsequent Sundays.

Anyway, linebackers Shaun Phillips and Shawne Merriman have seen their sack totals decrease this year, and Acee wonders if Cottrell's play-calling has something to do with it:

"It's aggressive," Cottrell said of his scheme. When evidence to the contrary was mentioned, Cottrell said, "Well, whatever. I'm not going to argue with you. But I'm not sitting back and playing frickin' coverage – don't tell me I'm not going after people."

Awesome. Whatever you do, don't question whether Cottrell is going after people. Duly noted, sir. You may have heard this before, but there were some concerns about hiring Norv Turner. For starters, Norv's not a very good head coach. Second, San Diego had two solid in-house candidates: offensive coordinator Cam Cameron and defensive coordinator Wade Philliips.

Cameron's in Miami and Phillips landed the Dallas job. And he's doing for the Cowboys' 3-4 what Bill Parcells (and Cottrell in San Diego, apparently) couldn't: playing aggressively. So while it's easy to just blame Norv for everything, Cottrell is also deserving of some ridicule. Whether he thinks so or not.

The San Diego Chargers' brief courtship of USC head coach Pete Carroll was apparently doomed from the start.

The dealbreaker, aparently was when Chargers General Manager A.J. Smith insisted that Ted Cottrell be on board as defensive coordinator.

For his first five years at Southern California, Carroll served as his own defensive coordinator before handing the keys over to Nick Holt last season for the Trojans.

The "control" issue was apparently also what kept Carroll from going to Miami earlier in the year.

With an offense-oriented coach in Norv Turner becoming the head coach of the San Diego Chargers, the focus will immediately turn to Turner's defensive coordinator, and all signs indicate that Ted Cottrell is the leading candidate.

At first glance, that might seem to make sense. Cottrell is a longtime defensive assistant who has worked with former Chargers defensive coordinator Wade Phillips when both were in Buffalo. The Chargers don't want any major changes, and Cottrell will run the same type of defense that Phillips ran.

But Cottrell was out of coaching entirely in 2006. And the defense he coordinated in 2005, the Minnesota Vikings, got a whole lot better after he left. What makes anyone think he's the right person to run the defense in San Diego? Furthermore, why shouldn't the Chargers want to make major changes on their defense? San Diego was a very good team last year, but that was because of the offense. The defense was mediocre. (It ranked 14th in the league in the advanced Football Outsiders stats.)

The right move would have been to hire Baltimore Ravens defensive coordinator Rex Ryan as the head coach. The Chargers considered him before giving the job to Turner, and he would have made a big difference to their defense. Ryan then could have filled out his staff with offensive coaches who would have kept things the same. I'd take Ryan and just about any offensive coach in the league over Turner and Cottrell.