Norv Turner might not be the flashiest or the smartest or, hell, the best-looking coach in the league. But the guy knows how to finish games. At least since coming to San Diego, anyway. Hired prior to the 2007 season to replace general manager A.J. Smith's nemesis, Marty Schottenheimer (who was coming off a 14-2 '06 effort), Turner and the Chargers stumbled to a 1-3 record last year, and weren't much better this time around.
And it's not an exaggeration to suggest that FanHouse was pretty hard on Norval Eugene. Okay, really hard on him. Luckily, he doesn't know now to operate an Al Gore Machine so he had no idea. (From a recent San Diego Union-Tribune Q & A: Are you familiar with the Web sites nomorenorv.com and firenorv.net? Norv: "I know they're there, but I haven't had my kids teach me how to log on to them." Classic.) But we know and, frankly, we feel very guilty about it. Hence this post.
Also, as Brinson pointed out previously, Norv's 9-0 in December since coming to San Diego. And now he's 3-1 in the postseason, too. The guy he replaced? Bupkis in five years with the Chargers, and his last playoff win came in 1993 with the Kansas City Chiefs.
I still think the Chargers front office was biting off its nose to spite its face when it canned Schottenheimer, and given his head-coaching track record, I had zero confidence that Norv would be anything other than a huge flop, yet here we are two years and three January wins later. Hey, sometimes you get lucky.
Tony Sparano and Mike Smith are the clear-cut favorites in the Coach of the Year running, but in my mind, Turner just made this a three-man race. And I'm not even kidding.
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