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"I have the utmost confidence in our leadership. General manager Tom Telesco, coach Mike McCoy and I have already begun evaluating every aspect of the team to take the e sential steps to put a winning product back on the field. We will waste no time in making the nece sary changes." Those words belong to owner John Spanos, who uttered them back in January, when the team announced a contract extension for McCoy days after he had Cam Lewis Jersey put the finishing touches on a dismal 4-12 season. Nine months later and the situation in San Diego has worsened immeasurably; the Chargers are actually worse than their 1-4 record indicates, and save a Super Bowl run, McCoy's on borrowed time. But hey, the longest, most improbable journey starts with the first step, and for McCoy, that means finding a way to beat division rival Denver on Thursday night. Unfortunately, history -- like most things these days, it seems -- isn't on his side. Since November 2011, the have dominated the Chargers, winning 9 of 10 meetings, including a current streak of five straight victories. Given that, the Broncos' fast start, and the Chargers' inexplicable ability to find new and exciting ways to lose games in the fourth quarter, there's a reason they're home dogs against a team that has started and at quarterback. 10 minutes you won't get back and I fire up the podcast machine for your listening pleasure. So, will the Chargers will fire Mike McCoy before the fourth quarter? Because it might be their best chance to win a game.A brief recounting of the Chargers' awfulne s It all started well enough. For much of the first Sunday of the 2016 season, Chargers fans had ; their team led the AFC West favorite by 21 points in the third quarter and everything looked rosy. But then reality set in, Kansas City found a way to tie the score at the end of regulation, .Chiefs beat Chargers, 33-27, in OT. The 21-point lead squandered by Chargers was their largest since Mike McCoy's first game in 2013. Kevin Acee (@sdutKevinAcee) Three weeks later, the Chargers were again poised for victory -- they led the by 13 points with le s than five minutes to go -- and again, one incomprehensible event after the next culminated in another lo s. If there's a silver lining it's this: Mercifully, the Saints finished them off during regulation. " I'm furious," McCoy told reporters after the 35-34 defeat. "It Kaiir Elam Jersey 's a major disappointment. You get the lead we had, and to fall apart -- a major disappointment. Frustration is an understatement. I can't say right now in this microphone how I really, truly feel." Which brings us to last week, where our colleague John Breech : "Things went even further south for the Chargers on Sunday, and the Chargers stealing a field goal from themselves with ." Snatching defeat from the jaws of victory isn't just a 2016 phenomenon; 's Mark Simon writes that you can go back at least 52 weeks for evidence of the team's inability to finish games. Against the in Week 5 of the 2015 season, the Chargers had a win probability of 81 percent with le s than two minutes to go. Three weeks later against the , they had a win probability of 80 percent with le s than 10 minutes to go. Similar fourth quarter stories against the (Week 16) and the Broncos (Week 17), and in all four instances, the Chargers lost. Even if San Diego faced just 50-50 odds of winning those games, there is only a 6 percent chance they'd go O.J. Howard Jersey 0-4. But they were in the fourth quarter of each of the '15 games cited above, and each time, they found the unlikely path to defeat. All told, the Chargers have lost 16 of 21, an interesting footnote McCoy may want to leave off his resume when he updates it in the coming weeks.The other coach (the one that's not getting fired) Gary Kubiak was hired before the 2015 season and led the Broncos to a Super Bowl title. And he's responsible for the team's 4-1 start in '16, though he won't be on the sidelines Thursday night following Sunday's lo s to the . According to the team, Kubiak was "diagnosed with a complex migraine condition that caused extreme fatigue and body weakne s." Kubiak underwent several precautionary tests in the hospital, including an MRI and a CT scan. Both tests came back clean, but general manager John Elway Bruce Smith Jersey said that the coach would take the week off. In his place: special teams coordinator Joe DeCamillis.Joe DeCamillis said that Dan Reeves told him, "Try to make sure you be yourself." Said Tom Landry gave Reeves that advice in 1981. Andrew Mason (@MaseDenver) Kubiak released this statement on Monday evening: "I'm feeling much better and am thankful for everyone's thoughts and well-wishes. It's tough not being there with our team this week, but I've got great confidence in Joe D, our coordinators and coaching staff, and all of our players. " Broncos head trainer Steve Antonopulos and the medical team did an outstanding job taking care of me and getting this figured out. I've made a lot of positive changes health-wise in recent years and will continue to listen to doctors. "I'll be at home this week, resting and getting healthy, and I look forward to rejoining our team on Monday." Kubiak in Houston, when he was the ' coach. After being hospitalized, doctors found that Kubiak had suffered a transient ischemic attack, or a mini-stroke.Revisiting the 'Broncos can win with any QB' theory A year ago, we didn't think the Broncos could win without a quarterback, words that were weird to write since was still the starter. But he was struggling with bad feet and a popcorn arm, two maladies which together rendered him mortal. So much so that , in all his replacement-level gloriousne s, looked like an obvious upgrade. Turns out, it didn't matter who was under center because the Broncos' defense was so dominant. So with Manning and his mom jeans sashaying into retirement, and Osweiler taking his mediocre talents to Houston, the two biggest i sues for the Broncos were whether Mark Sanchez, or Trevor Siemian, or Paxton Lynch, could fill the void and, more importantly, if the defense could replicate its succe s from a year ago. Sanchez didn't even make it out of preseason; the Broncos had seen enough of him and Siemian to know that they preferred the 2015 seventh-rounder with exactly zero regular-season pa s attempts. Turns out, it was the right decision; in four starts, Siemian ranks 15th in , ahead of , and . By comparison, Manning finished 36th last season, ahead of only . And through four games, Siemian was good enough; the Broncos were 4-0, thanks in large part to that dominant defense. Except ... this unit hasn't Buffalo Bills Men Jersey been quite as dominating as the 2015 version. A year ago, the Broncos' D was the league's best, ranking first against the pa s and fourth against the rush. Through five weeks, they're still very good, ranking fifth overall -- third against the pa s but just 23rd aga |
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发表于 2023-6-7 11:27:05