After losing at home to the Baltimore Ravens on Sunday afternoon Chargers head coach Norv Turner said, “There are things we need to do better. It is what it is.” According to this San Diego Union-Tribune article yesterday, Turner had this to say:
“After two games … I don’t think right now we’re as good as you that cover us think or expect us to be,” Turner said without being asked a question. “I don’t think we’re as good as what our fans want us to be. But I believe we can get there. We have a lot of work to do to get there.”
In the same article, there was also the following quote from quarterback Phillip Rivers:
“It seems the expectation outside the building is we never should lose a game, we should score every single time in the red zone, we should never punt,” quarterback Philip Rivers said. “It’s just a little bit unrealistic. We aren’t as good as we want to be or can be yet. Look at that negatively or look at it on the positive side. If we were peaking in Week 2 and sitting at 1-1 we’d be in trouble. But we’re here climbing the mountain early in the season.”
As a Chargers fan, the quote attributed to Rivers scares the bloody hell out of me. Up until this time, Rivers has always been confident bordering on brash…a common trait that most successful quarterbacks possess. Now, it certainly sounds like Rivers has been drinking Kool-Aid from Turner’s hot pink thermos and that doesn’t bode well for the future prospects of the team.
With all due respect to Rivers, his initial comment is absolutely preposterous. Even the most die-hard fans don’t expect the team to win every game and never punt. Nobody expects perfection. However, most knowledgable fans do expect this team to score touchdowns at least 50% of the time when in the red zone (instead of kicking chip shot field goals), win 11 or 12 games and make it to the AFC Championship.
Just imagine if Barack Obama tried to manage/lower everyone’s expectations like Turner and Rivers by saying, “The United States of America isn’t even close to being the best country in the world anymore. A lot of other countries have surpassed us and we have a lot of work to do in order to narrow the gap. It is what it is.”
This would be blasphemous, right? I’ll tell you what: if Turner and Rivers continue spewing garbage like this throughout the season then Kyle Orton’s Denver Broncos or…gulp…JaMarcus Russell’s Oakland Raiders will win the division. God help them if that happens.
Tags: denver broncos, kobe bryant, kyle orton, lebron james, Norv Turner, oakland raiders, Phillip Rivers, san diego chargers
