San Diego Chargers - NFL Season Information, Trivia and History

2011-12 NFL Season

Last season was the first time that Head Coach Norv Turner failed to take his team into the playoffs. After finishing with a 9-7 record and 2nd place in the AFC West, Turner is back, ready to get back to work and happy about the way the upcoming schedule played out. With three of the first four games at home (at New England in week 2), Turner believes his team is in a unique position that has not been afforded to them over the last three seasons. “There’s no question,” Turner said. “Being home three out of the first four, opening at home — we haven’t done that in the last couple years. It’s time for us to get off to a great start, and being at home should help us.”

Turner is also happy with the way the draft evolved this year. Although they were expected to pick up a QB with their first round (18th overall selection), they ended up picking the best player available. That just so happened to be Illinois DT Corey Liuget. We have good pass rushers on the outside," Coach Turner said. "We need to get our guys healthy. We've added a guy who will help our football team in Corey."

GM AJ Smith agreed. "We had targeted this young man," Smith said. "He has the ability to slide down if we want him to but we're going to put him at defensive end. He's absolutely physical. He has a mean little nasty streak that we like too. Relentless. He's got all the qualities that we're looking for in a first-round pick."

Other draft selections included Clemson CB Marcus Gilchrist (2nd round, 50th overall), Michigan LB Jonas Mouton (2nd round, 61st overall), San Diego State WR Vincent Brown (3rd round, 82nd overall), USC CB Shareece Wright (3rd round, 89th overall), Connecticut RB Jordan Todman (6th round, 163rd overall), Michigan G Stephen Schilling and Missouri LB Andrew Gachkar (7th round, 234th overall).

Outlook: Coach Turner is looking to get back to the playoffs but must be able to stop the run. They think they have that problem fixed with the drafting of Liuget. "We got two of the best rushing teams in the league but I think what we are trying to do is become the most complete team we can be," Turner said. "If we're playing a team that is a run team, we can stop the run. If playing a team that throws it 40 times, we can rush the passer."

That said; look for Turner and his Chargers to get back to the playoffs with strong defense and an offense that averaged 282.4 yards per game passing and 113.1 yards per game on the ground.

San Diego Archives

The San Diego Chargers have never enjoyed too much success since the franchise started in 1960. The team has employed 12 different coaches and of those 12 coaches only three of them, Sid Gillman, Don Coryell, and Bobby Ross, ended their time with the Chargers with a winning record. The last time the team went won their division was in 1994 when they eventually went on to the Super Bowl. The Chargers barely got by the Dolphins in their first game, 22-21, and just slipped by the Steelers 17-13 to make their way into Super Bowl XXIX in Miami, Florida. In one of the more lopsided victories in Super Bowl history the San Francisco 49ers beat the Chargers by a score of 49-26. In that game, San Francisco quarterback Steve Young threw for a Super Bowl record six touchdowns on his way to winning the MVP of the game. Since that devastating loss the Chargers franchise hasn’t been the same. They have only made the playoffs once and that was their single season above the .500 mark. Since the ’95 season the team has a 44-92 record that earned them a .324 winning percentage. The team hit rock bottom during the 2000 season when they only managed to win one game on their way to a 1-15 record.

Last year the Chargers disappointed their fans once again, even after head coach Marty Schottenheimer informed the press that they were a “damn good football team,” and went on to open up the season 0-5 and finished the season with a 4-12 record.

In the off-season the team had to make a number of moves to change the face of the team or be doomed to do the same things it had done in years past. They let go of key players like defensive end Marcellus Wiley, defensive end Raylee Johnson, wide receiver David Boston, tight end Stephen Alexander, offensive tackle Damion McIntosh, offensive tackle Vaughn Parker, guard Kelvin Garmon, and G Bob Hallen. The team did make some good additions by grabbing offensive tackle Roman Oben, wide receiver Kevin Dyson, guard Mike Goff, and linebacker Steve Foley.

The draft was a circus for the San Diego Chargers. The team had the dubious honor of making the first pick in the draft. The Chargers wanted Eli Manning who was the best quarterback in the draft but the Manning family let the Chargers know that Eli wouldn’t play for the Chargers even if that meant he had to hold out all year long and get put back into the 2005 draft. The Chargers then went ahead and used their number one pick on Eli Manning and let the bidding war for the rights to Manning begin. The Giants won the war when they gave the Chargers North Carolina quarterback Phillip Rivers, a third round pick in 2004 and a first and fifth round pick in 2005. The Chargers are confident that Rivers will be the next great quarterback in the organization and not the next Ryan Leaf who was one of the greatest flops of all time. With their second round pick the Chargers got Oregon defensive tackle Igor Olshansky. Olshansky is the type of defensive tackle that will not only push an offensive lineman over with his upper body strength (505 pound bench press) but he is a surprisingly fast guy (4.9 40-yard dash) for being 6’5” and weighing 309 pounds.

On the offensive side of the ball the Chargers weren’t too bad last year, but that’s because they have one of, if not the, best running back in all of the land in LaDanian Tomlinson or LT for short. LT will always be remembered for one of the guys that was traded for Atlanta quarterback Michael Vick. LT has rushed for over 1,200 yards in each of his three seasons and has surpassed 1,600 yards in the past two seasons. Tomlinson also brought in 100 catches for 725 yards while scoring 17 touchdowns in the 2003 campaign. If the Chargers offense were a car Tomlinson would be the motor the tires and the steering wheel of it.

The Chargers defense wasn’t quite as great as coach Schottenheimer thought they would be. The team finished 25 th against the run and 27 th in total defense. The team hopes that with all the new additions they will be able to improve on last years lack of defense last year.