Norv Turner

Dialogue with Tom Blair

IN HIS FIRST SEASON as the San Diego Chargers’ head coach——the 14th in the team’s 48 seasons——Norv Turner is already among the most successful. Despite a slow start and injury-riddled finish, Turner’s Chargers team was only the second in franchise history to make it to the third round of the AFC playoffs. The Chargers may have to wait until next year for a Super Bowl appearance, but Turner has already collected two Super Bowl rings as offensive coordinator with the Dallas Cowboys. His 23 years of NFL coaching experience include 10 seasons as head coach——seven with the Washington Redskins, two with the Oakland Raiders and one here. His choice as Chargers head coach last year marked a return for Turner, who served as offensive coordinator here in 2001.

TOM BLAIR: Congratulations on a great season of football. Amazing turnaround after a scary start.

NORV TURNER: Thanks. It was interesting. Quite a challenge at the start, but our guys hung in there. We could have won the last game, but it gives us something to shoot for next year.

TB: Your best season ever as a head coach, right?

NT: Yeah, it was.

TB: So, what was it like returning to San Diego and following a coach who went 14-2 the season before——and then got fired?

NT: I don’t think Marty [Schottenheimer] got fired based on 14-2. It was six weeks after the season was over that it actually happened. And they made the change based on a lot of things. They were going to hire someone, so the fact that I got hired was exciting to me. When they called——having been there in 2001, and knowing Dean Spanos and A.J. Smith and being familiar with a few of the key players——there was no question it was a great opportunity.

TB: Well, I’m sure it felt great coming in. It must not have felt so good by the end of four games with your record at 1-3. Were you worried then?

NT: When you’re in that situation, you really have to rely on your past experiences, your instincts and your ability to analyze where you are. I never felt we were that far away. We were two or three plays away from being 3-1. The New England game was a very rough one; they were way ahead of everybody at the beginning of the season with the additions they’d made and system changes that caught a lot of people by surprise. But we had a very realistic chance of beating Green Bay and obviously should have beaten Kansas City at home. But the plays that cost us those games, in my mind, were very easy to correct. I believed we’d get that done. What’s hard when you’re 1-3 is that you can’t turn it around in a week. By the time we got to 5-5, I was excited. I told the guys we’ll get on a roll and win a bunch of games in a row.

TB: When you jogged off the field at the end of that fourth game, did you hear the fans chanting, “Marty, Marty, Marty”?

NT: Oh, yeah; it wasn’t a chant. But I’ve been a fan of a lot of teams in sports——all my life——so I understand their perspective.

TB: And then, of course, the Chargers went 10-2 for the rest of the season. Did you hear it when the fans chanted “Norv, Norv, Norv” after that string of wins?

NT: When we came home and got off the bus after the division-clinching game, it was pretty fun. There were a lot of people out there chanting “Norv.” It’s funny how things change. But we’ve got great fans, and I appreciate them.

TB: You’d already served as an offensive coordinator for the Chargers in 2001. How different is it being a head coach compared to offensive coordinator? Do you tend to become a bit more conservative on offense when you have to worry about all aspects of the game?

NT: I don’t think so. One of the things I’ve always done——and I think it’s my background of having worked with John Robinson [at USC] and Jimmy Johnson [at Dallas]——I’ve always been aware of what you have to do offensively to help your team. I know at times people look at it and think “conservative,” but I’ve never been accused of being conservative. One of the things we knew we had to do here was be more aggressive with the passing game, especially when you get against real good teams and defenses like Tennessee and Baltimore. And I think we accomplished that. It was a struggle early, but we grew as the season went on. And then adding [wide receiver] Chris Chambers helped. And it showed up in the playoffs. If you look what Philip Rivers accomplished through the three playoff games, it certainly wasn’t conservative; we got pretty good in the passing game.

TB: You left San Diego to become head coach of the Chargers’ former archrival, the Oakland Raiders. What was it like working for owner Al Davis?

NT: Well, you know, I’ve been involved with a lot of different people, and each guy has his own style. But I’m more comfortable in San Diego where everyone is responsible for their own deal, and there isn’t a lot of interference. I prefer that.

TB: Al likes to be the coach at times.

NT: Uh, yeah.

TB: Lots of fans think they should be head coach. There are plenty of couch critics. And I guess I’m no different. It seems to me there were an awful lot of first-down calls this past season that had LaDainian Tomlinson going up the middle to little or no effect. Seems to me those were pretty much wasted first downs. When do you get to the point of saying, “That’s not working; we’ve got to try something else”?

NT: I’m not a believer in calling a play to set something else up. And I’m not in favor of just running something because you’re trying to be balanced. So we’ve never called a play when our intention was not to get yards. You know, a lot of people think L.T. is a scat back, but he’s really more of an inside-the-tackles runner. In the Baltimore game we started with two runs to the left, which is our strength. Neither run went anywhere. The first one got mild boos; the second one got real strong boos. And everyone remembers those plays. But when we looked at the tape on Monday, we wouldn’t have changed either of those calls. We had a situation on one call where the left tackle did not execute an assignment. And on the other call, the left guard got beat. And we were running things L.T. has done a great job with. Then we started the second half with the same two plays. The first one goes for 8 yards. The second one ends up being about a 25-yard gain——and that’s the one where L.T. broke the 10,000-yard mark. I know the fans want every play to work. But it’s hard. When I handle young quarterbacks, I tell them the hardest thing to learn is the mental part of the game, and the negative part. I tell them if you complete 60 percent of your passes, then 40 percent of the time somebody can be critical.

TB: Well, I’m guessing you’ve never adjusted your play calling based on what fans or sports writers were screaming for you to do.

NT: No.

TB: Rivers was a Pro Bowler in his first season as starting quarterback. And then, this season, his performance was often uneven. Were you worried about him?

NT: I really wasn’t. We were going through a period when we were changing things. We were asking the line to do some things a little different. We were asking Philip to do some things a little different. Eric Parker was hurt. Philip didn’t have that go-to wide receiver. We were going through a period of adjustment, that’s all. The quarterback gets a lot of credit, and he gets a lot of blame. And sometimes he has no control over those negative plays. At the end of the Kansas City game that we lost, it was a sack/fumble. Well, if you had a guy who weighs 290 pounds running full speed and he hits you in the back of the head while you’re looking the other way, there’s a pretty good chance the ball is going to come out.

TB: What about Rivers’ constant chattering and bantering with rival players and fans? Did you ever think that was getting out of control? Did you talk to him about putting a sock in it?

NT: I think what got out of control was the coverage of it——although I guess he helped that. At the end of the Denver game, it obviously brought more attention. That was about a 30-second spattering. But really, during the game, there was minimal talk going on. And then in Indianapolis, he and I had a discussion about it. He doesn’t need to be in a yelling contest with some guy who’s had 12 beers. But then, I understand what happened: He was lying on the table, having his knee examined, and it was certainly a serious situation. And that group of guys he ended up bantering with were being fairly abusive. That’s not to defend Phllip; you’ve got to turn your back to them and move on. But he’ll outgrow that.

TB: There was much talk after post-season play about L.T.’s performance and/or attitude. At times, on the sidelines, he seemed rather sullen. What did you think of Deion Sanders’ criticism of L.T. for not playing or not cheering from the sidelines during the championship game with the Patriots?

NT: I never saw the full text of [what Deion said]; I just heard people talking about it. But I do have a problem with guys that are going to give a medical examination from a TV booth. Anyone who knows L.T. knows that if he could have played, he would have played. Anyone who knows L.T. knows how important this is to him. He wants to win a championship. He fought back from an injury and said, “I’m going to give it a go.” And then, bang, he goes in there on the second play of the game and reinjures it. His reaction, if you’re being fair to him, you can understand. It was a big, big emotional letdown. And that’s the way L.T. shows it.

TB: There was also some controversy about Rivers’ playing at New England on two injured knees——one that required surgery just a few days before the game. Was that wise?

NT: The first knee injury was fine. That was the shame of it. One of the reasons he was playing so well in the playoffs was because he was really getting healthy——probably as healthy as he’d been with the knee he hurt in that first Tennessee game. On the other injury, we spent a lot of time with the doctors, the trainers and Philip. But it was really for the doctors and Philip to decide. The doctors assured us he needed the surgery, and that if he could handle the pain, and handle getting it ready in terms of stiffness and being able to move, that he would not [risk] injuring it further. This had to do with his mental toughness. As I told him at the time, if I was his father, I might have tried to talk him out of it. But when you’re 25 years old, and you’ve been doing what you’ve been doing to get there . . . Well, I knew he was going to give it his best try. And he played awfully well.

TB: So now, what will you adjust so the Chargers are a team that can beat the Pats next season?

NT: We just have to keep growing. We’re so young. Even though there are guys who’ve played three, four, five years, we’re still one of the youngest teams in the league. And then when you look at guys like Vincent Jackson, Antonio Cromartie, Marcus McNeil——guys who’ve only played a little bit——you’re going to see them grow. My gosh, our young players can get a lot better. We had to go through that first month to get where we needed to go. But we need to find a way to play at home in January. We need to find a way to get that week off that New England had. Because there’s no question they were healthier and they were a little fresher than us. And then playing in their own stadium; all those things give you a little bit of an edge.

TB: What do you think about Qualcomm Stadium compared to other stadiums around the league? Does it really matter to players and coaches what the stadium looks like?

NT: When you go to some of these new stadiums, it’s so nice for the fans. That probably is the biggest thing. But from the players’ standpoint, our crowd is so loud, Qualcomm is so loud, once you get on that field, I don’t know that the stadium itself changes anything. For all 32 teams in the NFL, the fields are the same size, same length, same width; the yard markers are all the same. But Qualcomm has that feeling of having the fans close to you. It reminds me of when I was with the Washington Redskins. We went from RFK Stadium——which seated 56,000, and the fans were right on you, and it was one of the loudest——to 90,000-seat FedEx Field, which has none of the same feel. And the fans aren’t as big a factor.

TB: If you could change one decision you made during the 2007 season, big or small, what would it be?

NT: Probably it would be something in that first month that affected the outcome of a game. I was probably trying to get too much done in that first month, instead of building on the things I wanted to see us do. We were probably trying to do some things we weren’t ready for. But that’s a fine line, because if you don’t push it and be aggressive, then you may never end up doing them. When you need to be able to do them in December or in January, you never find out if they might have worked.

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