Gilbride's firing no real surprise
Posted: Tuesday October 13, 1998 04:42 PM
This is a special edition of Peter King's Monday Morning Quarterback in
the wake of the firing of San Diego Chargers coach
Kevin Gilbride on Tuesday.
Some news events in the NFL stun you, like Kerry Collins benching
himself last week, or the Saints giving Mike Ditka a contract extension
through 2002.
But I didn't raise an eyebrow at Tuesday's quasi-bombshell of the first
coaching change of 1998. You could see this one coming a mile away.
The San Diego Chargers did not fire Kevin Gilbride because of his poor
13-month record, or because he didn't get along with his players, or
because Ryan Leaf
seemed to be going backward. They fired him because he was a different
coach than the one general manager Bobby Beathard interviewed for the job
when he fired Bobby Ross after the 1996 season.
As an offensive coordinator in Houston, Gilbride took a disparate group of
receivers --car collector Drew Hill, me-first Heywood Jeffires, ultimate
team player Curtis Duncan and a man who never thought he got the ball
enough, Ernest Givins -- and paired them with a very good quarterback, Warren Moon. Most
coordinators would have pulled their hair out and had trouble pacifying
Jeffires and Givins. Not Gilbride. He made a symphony of this group. Even
the quiet guy who would have been happy with two balls a game, Duncan, was
among the league leaders two seasons. And they were all happy. That's when
I knew Gilbride was something special as a coach. In Jacksonville, Gilbride
and Mark Brunell bonded
too. Brunell loved the even-keel, bright Gilbride. This is the coach
Beathard chose over disciplinarian Jim Mora and zone blitz disciple Vic
Fangio, Carolina's defensive coordinator, knowing that he would soon have
to bring in a new quarterback and he'd need a good tutor.
But what Beathard got, one San Diego official told me this summer, was a
"glass is half-empty guy. Kevin always seems to see the negative, not the
positive." Last year, the Chargers had an interesting running-back
prospect, Robert Chancey, a 6-foot, 258-pound load with a little juke
outside who hadn't gone to college. This was the type of prospect you need
to hit a bullseye on once in a while if you're trying to make it up from
the depths of 4-12, which the Chargers were. Beathard loved the guy. Now,
Beathard has loved a lot of bums in his time, too. But he wanted to see
Chancey in some sort of spot running role. Every time he asked Gilbride
about it, he'd get something like: "He can't pick up the playbook," from
Gilbride in return. And Beathard felt like: Hey, give the guy some small
role and let's see if we can develop a player because we're going nowhere
fast here.
The day I was in Charger camp, Beathard asked a Charger scout who'd seen
the Bears that week in a preseason game -- this was where Chancey landed
after the Chargers cut him -- how Chancey was doing. "They love him," the
scout said. "He's going to get some playing time there."
"I'm sick about that,'' Beathard said.
Extrapolate that a hundred-fold, and that's why Kevin Gilbride isn't the
coach of the San Diego Chargers this afternoon.
| 
