Los Angeles Chargers Are Slowly Vindicating Mike McCoy
By Erik Lambert
The Los Angeles Chargers were convinced after a second-straight losing season that everything wrong with their team started with Mike McCoy.
After leading the team to a surprise playoff birth in 2013, McCoy couldn’t quite get them back to the tournament. They went 9-7 the next year before collapsing to 4-12 and then of course the 5-11 mark last year. The common thread of that run was their painful ability to lose close games in the most heartbreaking fashion. Everybody was convinced that firing McCoy and hiring Anthony Lynn from Buffalo was the tweak in the formula needed.
Except no. Two weeks into the 2017 season and not a single thing has changed for the Chargers. Two-straight times they battled in tight games. Two-straight times they lost at the end of regulation with field goal gaffes. One was blocked and the other pushed wide. It was classic Chargers football at its finest, only this time with McCoy nowhere to be found.
Meanwhile the coach is already making life for them miserable. How? By transforming the offense of the hatred rival Denver Broncos into a force. Their 42-point outburst against Dallas had his fingerprints all over it.
"“We should have put up 50,” McCoy said, flashing an ice-cold glare. “Look, I want to score every single time we have the ball, and then I want to score some more — that’s my mentality, and that’s how I approach it. I love our defense, and they’re capable of carrying us, but I’m trying to give them as much of a cushion as I can. So I’m going to try to get the ball in the end zone, until (head coach Vance Joseph) tells me to stop.’"
Mike McCoy sounds like a man with a chip on his shoulder
There can be no doubt McCoy didn’t appreciate the team throwing him under the bus. He was doing everything he could to win. He had them competitive in every ball game. It’s clear now that their problems run deeper. Sure it’s early in the season and there’s a chance for the Chargers to turn things around. Then again it doesn’t feel like that’s the case. Oakland, Denver and Kansas City all look like top AFC teams again this year.
They look like the same heartbreakers they’ve been for two years. McCoy wasn’t the problem after all. No doubt he has a plan in mind. To rebuild his reputation as a coordinator, get a second chance elsewhere and succeed. That’s the type of competitor he is. He wants to show Los Angeles they made a bad mistake.