Charge

I am not going to pretend to be some big time über Chargers fan these days. I certainly have been at certain times of my life. A San Diego native, I grew up a season ticket holder. Balboa Stadium. Sid Gillman was a good friend of my pop and used to come over to our house for parties. I watched Ladd and Garrison and Speedy Duncan and kept on loving the team through the Coryell era.

Something changed for me when the Spanos family bought the team. It would be simple to ascribe it to their political affiliation but I think or at least hope that I am bigger than that. The business of sports is just plain ugly. I didn't like how they hosed the city of San Diego on the renovations to the Murph.

San Diego is in a dither right now about the Chargers implosion this year. Fire Norv Turner, fire general manager A.J. Smith. I have a contrarian view. I would like to keep them both.

The Chargers were hit with some bad injuries this year. A.J. missed a few times on the draft. What aggressive person doesn't occasionally make a mistake? He is an excellent talent evaluator. I do not think this is the time to blow the team up.

If there is a problem with the Chargers, I point my finger at Dean Spanos an entitled rich kid whose daddy gave him a team. When you get bitten by a pit bull, you can't really blame the dog, you blame the owner.

When the Vincent Jackson contract squeeze happened last year, I read some interviews with Deano. He was going to show everybody just how tough and mean he could be. Ballbusting 101. His regime treats players like chattel, uses them up and kicks them out the door when their services are no longer required with barely a nod. Rodney, Junior, Sproles, LT, the list goes on and on. Marty. I think that this attitude comes right from the owner. A.J. is Dean's pitbull. Dean has fed the dog raw meat and he got arrogant with his own power and forgot how to treat people respectfully.

The easy thing now would be to just get rid of the dog. But I don't think it is the fair thing to do. The team is not that far off. Give it another year.