The 2016 season was not kind to the Chargers, nor its fans. On the field, San Diego failed to finish games, resulting in a 5-11 record that included nine losses by one score. Off the field, the team, the league and the city were unable to come to an agreement on stadium issues.
So, the team’s long-rumored move to Los Angeles has commenced.
Will a new home and a new head coach help turn this team’s fortunes around? Or does Anthony Lynn’s team have more problems that need to be fixed to expect a one year turnaround?
Richard Wade, managing editor of Bolts from the Blue, shared his thoughts on those and other issues facing the soon-to-be Los Angeles Chargers.
Zoneblitz: We’ll focus primarily on the field, but the 800-pound gorilla in the room is the team’s move. What are your thoughts on the transition to Los Angeles?
Wade: As a native San Diegan and lifelong Chargers fan the transition to Los Angeles has been awful to experience. A big part of the enjoyment of sports is the shared experience with family, friends, and community. With the team packing up and leaving, that shared experience has been taken apart. Also, the manner in which the Spanos family has handled the move has been embarrassing to watch, so there is really very little to feel good about when it comes to supporting this franchise in 2017.
Zoneblitz: The Chargers were, in my opinion, one of the league’s more confusing teams in 2016. It went 5-11 but lost nine of those games by one score. How would you assess this team and what went wrong?
Wade: The Chargers’ inability to close out games can mostly be traced back to two things: terrible coaching and inadequate depth. Head coach Mike McCoy was one of the worst I have ever seen at managing the clock and understanding game situations. He directly cost the team multiple games. Also, the roster that general manager Tom Telesco put together had some very capable starters at most positions, but the depth was poor to nonexistent and that showed up in the second half of games early on and was even more exposed as injuries started to pile up. (more…)
Expectations were high in New York, following a 10-6 2015 season. But pretty much right out of the gate, the 2016 season ended up being as bad as the previous season was good.
Injuries, age, poor QB play and suspensions, among other problems, decimated the Jets, dooming them to a 5-11 season.
Do Todd Bowles and his team have what they need to turn things around? What happens at the QB position? Can the Jets show that 2016 was the outlier instead of 2015?
Joe Caporoso, owner of Turn on the Jets, joined us to share his thoughts.
Zoneblitz: The 2016 season was as bad as 2015 was promising – what went wrong?
Caporoso: The quarterback play was the worst in the NFL and that started a domino effect of incompetence throughout the team. Todd Bowles regressed as a coach, young players like Calvin Pryor and Lorenzo Mauldin took a step back, the team’s red zone efficiency plummeted and they stopped being able to force turnovers. Throw in a few key injuries (Eric Decker, Nick Mangold) and you have the perfect recipe for 5-11.
Zoneblitz: Was retaining Todd Bowles the right move?
Caporoso: I think so. This team can’t keep flipping everything over every 2 years. At this time last year Bowles was coming off a solid 10-6 rookie year, one year after being the AP Assistant Coach of the Year, it is hard to think he has transformed into Rich Kotite and can’t coach anymore. He must improve his game management and ability to make quicker decisions on ineffective players but I am not surprised he got a third year. (more…)
The Los Angeles Rams found their new home in familiar digs in 2016, returning to the market they left after the 1994 season. The results were oddly similar to the last time they called California home.
The 2016 Rams matched the 1994 Rams with a 4-12 record, putting forth an anemic offense and a defense that backslid enough to eventually cost Jeff Fisher his job.
The team is not devoid of talent, however. Aaron Donald is one of the league’s best defensive linemen and the offense, with RB Todd Gurley and second-year QB Jared Goff, at least has some pieces.
So what will it take for new coach Sean McVay to bring this team and market success? We asked Andrew Hogan, who previously founded a website called Bring Back our Los Angeles Rams and now heads up FearsomeFootball.com, to share his thoughts.
Zoneblitz: You were heavily involved in lobbying for the return of the Rams – what was it like having football back in LA in 2016?
Hogan: At the beginning, it was completely and totally surreal … I had been to hundreds of college football/baseball/hockey games but only to two NFL games in my life and I had no real rooting interest in those games. To have a team to actually cheer for — and for it to be Los Angeles’ true NFL team—was, again, totally surreal. (more…)
In recent years, I think the Hall of Fame voters have done a pretty decent job. They haven’t selected every player I would have preferred to see, but their choices have, by and large, been defensible. They’ve cleared some backlogs, notably at the WR position. And they’ve, for the most part, left off fringe borderline guys in order to get some truly qualified players enshrined.
But this 2017 class is the most disappointed I’ve been in several years. It’s not just that they didn’t follow my desired ballot. And it’s not that I think the candidates selected this year were uniformly not qualified for enshrinement in the Hall.
It’s more that this year’s entrants just feel like a collection of compromise candidates. Among my issues:
Terrell Davis was a great RB and he may deserve to be in the Hall. But the short tenure of his career, against someone like Terrell Owens, makes Davis a questionable pick.
Though he is one of the great kickers of all-time, Morten Andersen was on the field for, what, 10 to 12 plays per game most of the time? He belongs in the Hall as one of the League’s all-time highest scorers, but not until voters solve the safety position – which is flush with qualified candidates from first-time-eligible Brian Dawkins to multi-year candidates like Steve Atwater and John Lynch. Let’s sum it up this way: Despite the plethora of qualified candidates, the voters have now selected two special teamers in the last four years (Andersen and Ray Guy in 2014) while not adding a single one of the safeties.
Kurt Warner was the best QB among modern-era candidates. And he had great moments and he’s a great story, but his was an up-and-down career. He’s waited a few years. But offensive linemen like Joe Jacoby are equally qualified and running out of remaining eligibility. Warner’s resume is not so overwhelming that he couldn’t wait in favor of an equal candidate with fewer years left.
Owens could not even make it into the final five? We’re talking about a WR some believe to be the second best ever. Even now, seven years removed from the game, Owens is third in receiving TDs with 153, second in yards with 15,934 and eighth in receptions with 1,078. I get that he was a jackwagon at times, that he wasn’t always a model citizen or a great guy. And sure, some will argue that if Tim Brown, Cris Carter and Andre Reed had to wait, Owens can too. But … HE DIDN’T EVEN MAKE THE FINAL 10. To me he’s the second or third strongest candidate in the final 15, but that aside, there is ZERO cogent argument for him not making the final 10.That is purely a vengeful play by writer/voters.
It’s not getting as much attention as the Owens snub, but the enshrined seven all also will get their gold jackets before Kevin Mawae and Alan Faneca, two guys who easily were nearly peerless during their playing days. Consider this: Both Mawae (eight) and Faneca (nine) played in more Pro Bowls than Davis played seasons. Faneca also had six first-team AP All Pro awards and, in his down years, added two second-team AP awards. Mawae had three firsts and four seconds.
The non-election of Paul Tagliabue only further illustrates the folly that is alternating years between two seniors and a contributor with two contributors and a senior. I believe Tagliabue is Hall worthy for his ability to maintain labor peace for his entire tenure, after players strikes interrupted play twice in the last seven years of Pete Rozelle’s tenure. But if voters find him borderline, there are better candidates than him and, frankly, Jerry Jones, whose candidacy feels ridiculously rushed when there are guys like Bobby Beathard out there waiting. That said, there are far fewer contributors who are must-have Hall enshrinement candidates than there are senior candidates. Let’s get the Chuck Howleys and Johnny Robinsons and Jerry Kramers and others who actually helped build the game on the field in while they are, for the most part, still around and wait on forcing more questionable contributors onto the annual ballot.
Some question how Jason Taylor got in on his first try while Michael Strahan had to wait. That I don’t have as much a problem with, as Strahan was a victim of numbers when Warren Sapp, Jonathan Ogden and Larry Allen also were eligible for the first time. Not all first-time warranted candidates are going to get in right away and that class has to rank as one of the most impressive in Hall history. Jason Taylor just happened to retire in the right year.
You tell me which would be the stronger enshrinement class of 2017: (more…)
After years of struggle, some experts thought the Jacksonville Jaguars could push .500 in 2016 and maybe even contend in a weak AFC South.
Those hopes were quickly dashed, as a brutal backslide by young QB Blake Bortles and an 0-3 start denigrated into a nine-game losing streak that eventually cost head coach Gus Bradley his job.
Still, through a disastrous 3-13 season, the Jaguars did play some pretty solid defense. And the offense still has some young, high-level talent. Can Doug Marrone rescue Bortles? Can Bortles recover and take this team on a long-awaited turnaround? Or will the next couple of years signal the need for yet another rebuild?
Luke Sims, editor of Black & Teal, shares his insights:
Zoneblitz: Heading into the season I don’t think I was alone in expecting the Jaguars to take a step forward this season. That didn’t happen. But there still seems to be some rising talent here. What was your assessment of the season?
Sims: 3-13 was definitely a disappointment, especially as the .500 goal was modest. Going from 5-11 in 2015 to 8-8 should have been achievable in the fourth year of a rebuild. Interestingly, the progress on the defensive side (the liability in 2015) did pay off. The Jags fielded a top defense in yards allowed and also managed to create some turnovers in the latter half of the season. There’s still room for growth, but the defense looks like it is in a position to be a strength going forward. The offense was the big letdown. Where there should have been progress, there was regression. With much of the same talent that brought an exciting 2015, it was easy to put blame on the coaches. Greg Olson was rightly canned and Gus Bradley’s long tenure as modern-era head coach with the worst record also deservedly led to his dismissal. If the Jags could combine 2016’s defense with 2015’s offense, they could be real contenders. There was just a disconnect there, even with 10 games being decided by seven points or less.
Zoneblitz: Was firing Gus Bradley the right move? (more…)
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