AJ Smith

I was originally going to post about teams beating themselves after a dispute with a friend of mine, but I realized that it is more a matter of perspective. After another dispute with the same person I have decided to give my thoughts on the general manager of the chargers, AJ Smith.

I have a friend who loves AJ and a friend who hates him. I support him because he runs the team that I support, I don't always agree with the way he runs the team. He definitely has flaws which have become more noticeable recently but lets first focus on the positives AJ brings to the team:

Positives: AJ has proven he knows how to find talent in the past (Bad first round picks recently). He has proven he can find this talent late in the draft and in the undrafted free agent crop especially. He doesn't get pushed around by other GM's and just give players away for nothing (Just lets them walk in free agency for nothing). The thing that has made me kinda like AJ is that he says the job of a GM is to give their team enough talent to go to the playoffs every year, after that it's up to the players and coaches to get the job done. I agree with this and he has given San Diego a team that has gotten into the postseason the last 4 years, so he has done his job.

Negatives: AJ is a dictator, he always has been. He routinely demonstrates that things are run "my way or the highway" and unless he is flawless in replacing people he is going to be hated because he lets go of talent that has built a fan base here in San Diego (like LT). I don't necessarily disagree with his decision to let certain people go, he has a manner of doing it that alienates the fan base. These situations always seem so ugly, recent ugly situations include Donnie Edwards, Drew Brees, LaDainian Tomlinson, Antonio Cromartie, Shawne Merriman, Marty Schottenheimer, Vincent Jackson, Marcus McNeill and Antonio Gates. The last two issues listed got sorted out but the point is it seems like he can't deal with a big name without incident aside from Philip Rivers, it reflects on the organization poorly. He likes to build through the draft but he doesn't try to get anything for people that he knows aren't in future plans, Michael Turner and now Vincent Jackson come to mind.

Expanding on AJ as a dictator, I believe that this is the worst thing about AJ. All the continually successful teams in the NFL are identified by their head coach and not their GM like San Diego is. New England, Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, and Indianapolis (Dungy before he retired, now just carried by Manning) are continually successful teams and a common theme is a head coach who is the unquestioned leader of the franchise. I realize that San Diego may not be quite in this class of franchise because 3 of these teams have won a super bowl recently and Philly went to 4 straight conference championships and appeared in a super bowl, but San Diego has been to the playoffs 5 out of the last 6 years and that is continued success. Difference is now we are more AJ Smith's team, not Norv Turner's and I believe that has an affect on the players knowing Norv isn't in complete control. Rather than comparing the chargers in their current state to the Patriots like people have tried to do in the past, I compare them as an organization similar to the Dallas Cowboys because Jerry Jones is another dictator who hired a "yes man" as a head coach just like AJ did with Norv. Now both have weak minded head coaches who can't get their teams out of an early season rut.

To conclude I am not calling for AJ's head like many fans out out there, but I believe to be more successful and to take that next jump to championship caliber he may need to swallow his ego, and surrender some control of the team to a new head coach that will do more than just say yes to everything AJ requests.