Players to move on from

[richpjr]

I like him better on the bench...

I think we are all tired of expensive FA's constantly getting injured. Hate comes easy at 2-6...

Franklin missed 1 game in 4 years while with the Broncos...

[BlazingBolt]

John Spanos is actually our best hope. Deano has been calling the shots up until this season.

John will be the one to decide when to fire Telesco or McCoy and who to hire as their replacements. We can only hope John does a better job than Dean.

[Mister Hoarse]

If only Jimmy Raye was Deano's son...

We coulda had Jimmy Dean if he had the sausage to pull that off...

[Highboltage]

In fact, it would be a MUCH shorter thread if you listed the players the Chargers should NOT 'move on from'.

If I were going to make a list of REAL 'keepers' - given talent, performance, potential, and/or contract situation - here'd be my list:

Rivers
Verrett
Gordon
Woodhead
Attaochu
Perryman
Dunlap
Franklin
KA
LGreen
Lambo
Fluker
Scifries

And only Rivers, KA, and Verrett, IMO, would be considered 'untouchable'.

I'd add Philon to that list.

[Stinky Wizzleteats+]

John Spanos is actually our best hope. Deano has been calling the shots up until this season.

John will be the one to decide when to fire Telesco or McCoy and who to hire as their replacements. We can only hope John does a better job than Dean.

Help us Johnny Spanos, your our only hope!

[SDFan]

John Spanos is actually our best hope. Deano has been calling the shots up until this season.

John will be the one to decide when to fire Telesco or McCoy and who to hire as their replacements. We can only hope John does a better job than Dean.

BS. Deano said his 2 sons have already been running the team for the last 2 years while he focused on "the stadium issue" full time. Its also been widely reported John was part of the interview team that brought us TT, and then also MM. If the team is denied relocation to LA for 2016, John better be front and center rebuilding this thing from the ground up and showing accountability for the downward death spiral since NOrv's last 3 years. Lets see if he has more backbone than his Dithering Dad and will can a HC who isn't getting it done sooner rather than later. If they are moving to LA, they'll keep TT & MM in place for stability and continuity and tinker with other coaching moves (Pagano, Reich) while trying to put star power on the roster to sell tickets in LA LA land.

[TTK]

Like father, like son...

[richpjr]

[6025]

If the extended family ever decides it has to get out of the NFL business because it just can’t make it work for whatever reason, John is the one who would be truly devastated, I am led to believe by several people around the league. This is his passion.

Who cares.

[Stinky Wizzleteats+]

And here we have a family steeped in construction that is and has been ignorant to the foundation of the football team the own and operate....

All you need to know.

[Stinky Wizzleteats+]

Chargers’ future in hands of John Spanos
By Kevin Acee | 7:03 p.m. Nov. 2, 2015 | Updated, 7:53 p.m.

John Spanos has looked forward to and worked toward being in his current position virtually his entire life.

It’s a good thing. Because it’s not easy being the boss.

Spanos started his career with the Chargers as a ball boy and errand boy. In high school, he was helping the team’s then-general manager researching salary cap numbers. He became a full-time scout at 23. He negotiated his first contract (fifth-round draft pick Michael Turner in 2004) at 25.

Now, he is president of football operations. That is just what it sounds like. Just shy of 36 years old, Spanos is in charge of the football team while his older brother, A.G., directs the franchise's business ventures. Their father, Dean, is the team's chairman, still involved but having ceded daily operations to his two sons.

And in John Spanos' first year officially in charge of the on-field product, his product stinks.

There are not enough players who are good enough, the head coach might not be good enough, and the guy hired to run the team in concert with Spanos might not be good enough.

Too, Spanos' father and his father's “special counsel” are making some moves that have, well, alienated some of the team's fans.

This all combines to present a challenge, for sure. And not just for now.

What John Spanos does over the next two months will set a precedent that could shape how the team fares on the field (and, by extension, at the merchandise counter and whatever box office from which they sell tickets).

Yes, this is on John Spanos. The current mess of a 2-6 team is his responsibility to assess and decide how to clean up.

This is a new era of Chargers decision-making.

For two decades, Dean Spanos made the final decisions on all matters (business and football) before passing on that responsibility incrementally in recent years and officially in May. The elder Spanos cut his teeth in construction before taking over as team president in 1994, so he almost always deferred to the football people.

John Spanos is football people.

And among all the men who decide the football team's direction on a day-to-day basis, guess which one cannot be terminated.

Here's the conundrum.

Let’s say the Chargers finish with a lopsided losing record and Spanos decides it is a personnel issue, that the evidence of Derek Cox and Jacoby Jones and a number of languishing draft picks is due to a lack of ability by General Manager Tom Telesco. Will Spanos fire him? Though Telesco was largely the selection of Hall of Fame former GM Ron Wolf, who served as a consultant in the vetting/interview process, John Spanos was an active participant in the search.

If he lets Telesco go, would Spanos simply be commencing a practice of recycling general managers/fall guys? If he keeps him, would he implicitly be endorsing the mediocrity that has plagued the franchise for the last several seasons.

Will Spanos keep head coach Mike McCoy? A head coach is one of the faces of a franchise. Would a cliche-spewing, bland-as-sand McCoy with, most important of all, a dismal win-loss record play well in Los Angeles? Would he play well in San Diego, where the only way the team will be staying is if it is trying to launch a campaign to build a stadium?

These are questions that Spanos has to answer and act on. He can go to his father for guidance. But he would be wise to trust himself. Otherwise, what has he prepared for?

If I know him at all, he is leaning toward continuity. He has been in the NFL long enough to know that if you believe in your people, you don’t judge on singular results, or even annual results. Spanos is intimately involved in the process — in meetings, at practices — so he is uniquely qualified to make these decisions come January. (If I know him, too, there will be no decision until January.)

John is not his father. We should allow him to show us that. Whatever you believe about Dean, don’t make the mistake of confusing father and son.

He spent more than a decade as a scout. He has logged more hours in film rooms and the coach cabin of commercial airplanes and on backroads in a midsize rental car than all the other Spanoses combined.

If the extended family ever decides it has to get out of the NFL business because it just can’t make it work for whatever reason, John is the one who would be truly devastated, I am led to believe by several people around the league. This is his passion.

He is fiercely loyal to his father, so John Spanos won't like it when I say unequivocally that his are the most capable, dedicated hands at the top that this franchise has had in decades. (His father would agree.)

He must use those hands to direct his beloved team. His time is now.

Help us Johnny Spanos, your our only hope.

[richpjr]

Help us Johnny Spanos, your our only hope.

Someone is getting ready for the new Star Wars movie!