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The Dean Spanos and Marty Schottenheimer public battle is finally over. Needless to say, Spanos won. One of the NFL's winningest coaches over the last five years has been fired from his position of head coach of the San Diego Chargers. This news coming just weeks after Spanos assured reporters that Schottenheimer "gives us the best chance to win next year." So is firing Schottenheimer basically saying that Spanos is waiving the white flag next year? Not at all.

Schottenheimer was a great coach...during the regular season. When it came to the postseason, he choaked, plain and simple. During the regular season, Schottenheimer was known for great coaching descisions and play calling. In this years playoff loss against the New England Patriots he made four critical coaching mistakes that cost his team the victory and led to another dissapointing postseason.

As we all know, if you don't win everything in the NFL you win nothing at all. The Chargers led the NFL with a 14 wins and only two losses. They dominated both sides of the field, featuring LaDainian Tomlinson on offense and Shawne Marriman on defense, two of the games best players. They were one of the NFL's top offenses and sent more players to the Pro Bowl than any other team. Yet because of poor coaching they have nothing to show for it.

For the year 2007, the Chargers have some serious rebuilding to do. Losing a defensive coordinator and a head coach in the same season would be horrific for most teams. I don't feel that's the case with the Chargers.

The question everyone is asking is who is going to take over. Since they fired Schottenheimer so late, there are already a slew of posible head coaches off the table that have signed with other teams. No need to fret...there are still plenty of options. Norv Turner, Ron Rivera, Mike Singletary, Jim Caldwell, plus many others.

The choice for the coach isn't nearly as relevant to San Diego's success as the players. The core to any team is not coaching...it's the talent, and they have plenty to go around. Both sides of the ball are solid, and will remain that way, taking very few hits from free agency.

The bottom line is simple. Schottenheimer was a great coach, but any coach that Spanos hires will have a great chance of taking the Chargers even further next year. At least it makes for good drama though. If I was a Chargers fan, I'm looking forward to next season.

Learn more about this author, Randy Lamp.
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