The Mike McCoy era began with an infusion of youthful energy, showed promise and sank quickly.

If Sunday’s game against the Kansas City Chiefs is McCoy’s last as Chargers head coach, his time here will end the way most do in the NFL, with a sputtering run of futility and lingering questions about what went wrong.

We can lament the timeouts – those called in curious situations and those never expended. We can argue that his conservatism cost the Chargers a game or two each year, maybe even swayed the course of a couple seasons. We can question the decisions to punt or kick field goals or to pass instead of run. We can roll our eyes and yawn at his having all the magnetism of a rubber ball.

And certainly, those are symptoms that added up to a 27-36 record.


In the end, if there is to be one explanation as to why McCoy has to go, it is that he just couldn’t finish what he started.

McCoy was 40 when he was hired in January 2013. His success as an offensive coordinator had put him at the top of most lists of hot coaching candidates. And as much as his preparation and polish in the interview process wowed Dean Spanos, et al, youth was as big as any reason for why McCoy was the choice. Bruce Arians, who became the Arizona Cardinals head coach and was 60 at the time, wasn’t even considered because the Chargers were looking to move on from the 60-something general manager and head coach they had just fired.

McCoy and General Manager Tom Telesco, also 40 when hired 10 days before McCoy, accomplished that.

Their immediate machinations also accomplished getting the Chargers back to the postseason for the first time in four years following a torrid finish in December 2013.


For all the reasons the Chargers’ top decision makers would like to keep McCoy, the fact the team has gone three playoff-less seasons since that run is the baseline problem that can’t be escaped.

After winning four straight games at the end of ’13 to make the playoffs with a 9-7 record – and win a playoff game on the road – the Chargers had another postseason berth in hand entering December of ’14.

But an 8-4 record fizzled into 9-7, and that wasn’t good enough a second time.

The inability to finish that season was but a harbinger.


McCoy’s Chargers are 9-22 since the start of 2015 in large part because they couldn’t close out games. For all the explanations and randomness and what-ifs, his demise can be summed up that simply.

Last season, the Chargers lost nine of their 12 games that were decided by one score. This year, they are 4-9 in such games. They lost five games in which they had fourth-quarter leads last season, including a loss to Pittsburgh in which the Chargers led for the full 60 minutes. This season, seven of their losses have come in games in which they led in the fourth quarter.

No team has coughed up as many close games nor had a late lead in as many of those losses over that span. For good measure, the Chargers’ minus-86 point differential in the fourth quarter is worst in the NFL over the past two seasons.

Those are some nonsensical numbers, especially in light of what they say about a no-nonsense man.


Should Sunday evening be the final time McCoy says the Chargers fought hard and stayed together and some other things we’ve heard a few dozen times, we can conclude he simply didn’t have enough.

Enough healthy players. Enough gumption. Enough charisma. Enough flexibility.

No one can be more shocked than McCoy that this hasn’t worked out. He came in cocksure and wavered only slightly in his approach over four seasons.

There was a basic thread of consistency throughout, perhaps best embodied in the cliches McCoy so often recited.


“The best 53.”

Good concept. The Chargers were simply incapable of filling their roster with the best players over the past two seasons, especially this one.

“I only know one way to do things.”

McCoy stubbornly held to some principles and approaches for too long – be that in-game management or the way he dealt with the players on an individual basis.


“We have a culture here.”

Indeed, McCoy did spearhead change in a franchise that had been led by similar longtime old-school football people for more than a decade. He earnestly instilled a family atmosphere that should not be discounted for the effect it had and what it might have helped if not for some rotten luck and/or a few more breaks.

“I went with my gut.”

McCoy’s oft-cited explanation for why he made certain in-game decisions would, if taken literally, mean he ate nothing but saltine crackers. It was a style of game management that fit with his approach with the media and, much more importantly, the team.


There just wasn’t enough there there.

He was going to have to win for his type of monotonous autocratic approach to work.

Of course, yes, victories are how head coaches are ultimately measured. But moreover, McCoy was going to have to keep on winning to keep on winning.

His consistency and recurring themes were fine, but they were much better received (and even built upon themselves) when the Chargers went to the playoffs in McCoy’s debut season and then started 8-4 in 2014.


It was actually clear as early as the summer of 2014 that while the players had bought in, continued motivation was going to be contingent on sustained success. They were following because it was leading somewhere, not so much because they were inspired.

Players always considered McCoy slightly awkward, even brusque. He was long-winded, repetitive even for a football coach. But making the playoffs makes the blandest serving more palatable.

Losing does nothing to curb hard edges. It makes young players drift. It makes older players roll their eyes. When the going gets tough and stays that way, some messages go in one ear and out the other.

That’s not to say McCoy ever lost the team. He and his staff might have done their best coaching job this season, considering the league-high number of players out for the season due to injury and the preponderance of key players lost early.


But to paraphrase the general opinion of a number of players who have absolutely no problem with McCoy, he simply hasn’t been a difference maker.

It is fitting then, if the expected end is actually upon us, that he is sort of drifting off. There hasn’t been a great effort to save him. After he is fired, there won’t be more than (and may be less than) the usual protestations by players that they are the ones who let the coach down.

He may have deserved better this year. He is a man of extremely high character, and he did make subtle changes over the past two seasons. He might have had just enough to offer, with the help of a mostly excellent staff, to have won more games with a full (or nearly full) roster.

But it didn’t happen that way. It won’t finish like it started. He didn’t have enough.


kevin.acee@sduniontribune.com