Line of Scrimmage: Norv Turner - Bad Things Happen in Threes

Football Betting Lines

02/20/2007 - Philadelphia, PA (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - They're rejoicing in Denver, Kansas City, and Oakland right about now.

Norv Turner is an NFL head coach for the third time, having taken over for Marty Schottenheimer in San Diego, and the rest of the AFC West is licking its collective chops.

"Aw," you insist. "Give Norv a chance!"

No thanks. Turner got nine seasons worth of chances, minus those final three games of 2000 in which Redskins owner Daniel Snyder sent Norv on an early, ineptitude-forced vacation.

The record - 58-82-1 in nine years with Washington and Oakland - should speak for itself. The number of playoff appearances and postseason wins - one each - should too.

Norv Turner is simply not a quality head football coach, and I'm not sure that a Chargers Super Bowl win, which could realistically come as early as next season, would necessarily prove otherwise. Turner might just raise the Lombardi Trophy next February in Glendale, but at best, he's a caretaker in the class of Barry Switzer or George Seifert.

At worst, he's a disaster. With the Redskins and Raiders, he was the quintessential "player's coach" albeit one that had little clue how to actually motivate those players. He was even-keel to a fault, rarely inspired greatness in important division or rivalry games, and more or less left both franchises in worse shape than he found them.

"Yeah," you're telling me, "but that great offensive mind!"

That great offensive mind, which indisputably functions at a John Nash-like level when Turner wears the coordinator's headset, loses some of its cellular activity when Turner assumes the head coaching reins.

In his seven years with the Redskins, Turner's teams were top 10 in the league in yards exactly once. The Raiders finished in the bottom half of the NFL in both points and yards in each of Norv's two years in Oakland.

And look at all those great signal-callers that the purported QB guru helped guide in his nine seasons as head coach. Heath Shuler became the next Sonny Jurgensen, right? Turner seemed to have a great rapport with consummate winners Jeff George and Kerry Collins, too. The best quarterback Norv coached in the close-to-a-decade he spent as a head coach was probably Trent Green, who the Rockne-like Turner let walk away via free agency after the 1998 season.

Are the Chargers headed on a path to destruction simply because they hired Turner? Of course not. San Diego still has the best offensive player (LaDainian Tomlinson) and defensive player (Shawne Merriman) in the league, has a bright young quarterback in Philip Rivers and other first-rate talents like tight end Antonio Gates and nose tackle Jamal Williams. With that nucleus and the bitterness of last season's shocking playoff exit in their rear-view mirror, you can expect the Chargers to win the AFC West and make a serious run at the franchise's first Super Bowl title.

But the very same would have happened had the Spanos family and co-conspirator A.J. Smith hired Mike Singletary, Mike Zimmer, Rex Ryan, Ron Rivera, or someone else who hadn't already proven himself to be an utter failure as a head coach.

The same would have also happened had the Chargers hired Barry Switzer. Which in a way, they did.

...AND IN SAN FRANCISCO

Fans of the 49ers should be fearful too. Turner's departure leaves a gap at offensive coordinator, and early speculation has centered on the possible promotion of San Francisco wide receivers coach Jerry Sullivan to the position.

The 62-year-old Sullivan has a ton of experience as an NFL assistant, but his only year as an offensive coordinator in the league ended in abject failure. Sullivan steered the attack of the 2003 Arizona Cardinals, who finished dead last in the league in scoring (14.1 points per game) while going 4-12 and hastening head coach Dave McGinnis' exit from town.

Finding a credible coordinator candidate at this late stage of the offseason is problematic, but I've got one - Mark Whipple. Whipple was quarterbacks coach in Pittsburgh for the past three seasons, and was the odds-on favorite to become offensive coordinator if either Ken Whisenhunt or Russ Grimm had been tabbed as new head coach of the Steelers. Instead, Whipple is out of a job, an ignoble fate for a man that helped mold Ben Roethlisberger into one of the top young quarterbacks in the league.