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San Diego shakeup Offseason moves may include Donahue, Turner
Updated: Sunday October 29, 2000 1:54 PM
Sports Illustrated's Peter King chatted with CNNSI anchor Bob Lorenz about the league's happenings entering Week 9 of the NFL season on CNN's NFL Preview: Bob Lorenz: It's the midway point of the season, not too early to look ahead to changes that could be made in the offseason... Peter King: Right, and things are starting to heat up a bit in San Diego. The Chargers are pondering whether to make a major shakeup in their front office and coaching staff after this season. Two interesting names have surfaced this week. The first is Terry Donahue, who's been helping Bill Walsh in the 49ers front office. I think Donahue wants to stay in San Francisco because he would like to succeed Walsh there, but he still has a home in Orange County and would be a logical choice to be the general manager in San Diego. The other name that's surfaced as a possible head-coach replacement for Mike Riley is Norv Turner. Although Redskins owner Daniel Snyder has told me flat-out, "Norv will be here for more than one year," I think Turner has questions if they don't win the Super Bowl this year whether the Redskins would want him back and whether he would want to come back. So he'll be a name to keep in that mix in San Diego. Bob Lorenz: How seamless do you think the transition from Kurt Warner to Trent Green is going to be for the Rams? Peter King: I talked to Rams head coach Mike Martz this week and one of the things I said to him was Kurt Warner is a 69 percent passer who hits guys in stride while Trent Green looks to me like a 66 percent passer who hits guys all over the place. Martz said, "You know what Peter, that's true, but what's going to happen is that as he plays, Green is going to get more accurate. Remember, he's the guy who was 28-of-32 in preseason last year." I think Trent Green is going to do a great job as Warner's replacement. Bob Lorenz: The Dolphins have had some problems with their running attack the past several years. This season a lot of people are as impressed with it as they've ever been. What do you think? Peter King: Any great team in the NFL has to have a closer. You've seen it in the last decade of play: the Giants with Ottis Anderson, the Cowboys with Emmitt Smith, the Packers with Dorsey Levens, the Broncos with Terrell Davis. Right now the Miami Dolphins are not a great team because they don't have that closer. Lamar Smith and J.J. Johnson couldn't give them the three or four first downs that they had to have to kill the clock in the fourth quarter Monday night. That's the reason they lost to the Jets, that's the reason they're not going to be a good team until they develop that fourth-quarter pounding presence. Bob Lorenz: Has the Vikings' defense turned around because of new players like Cris Dishman and Chris Hovan or is it because of new defensive coordinator Emmitt Thomas? Peter King: Chris Hovan has really helped the Vikings because he's given them the latitude to play John Randle at other spots on the line, it hasn't just locked Randle in at one position. I think Thomas has really helped for a very simple reason: he might be the quietest assistant coach in the NFL, but he also has the most lethal philosophy on defense. He really likes to attack the pocket. Bob Lorenz: It's been a tough season for the Jaguars. We hear the buzz that Tom Coughlin might not be there to help turn things around next year... Peter King: I think everyone in the world is starting to think of Tom Coughlin as the ex-Jaguars head coach. That is, everybody except the person who really counts, Jacksonville owner Wayne Weaver. Weaver has Coughlin under contract for an additional three years after this season at more than $6 million total. And Weaver's not going to let Coughlin out of this job, even if the Notre Dame job opens up, which appears to be totally unlikely now. Bob Lorenz: You'd think the Redskins' whole week would be about gameplanning the Titans. But it's been more than that, hasn't it? Peter King: Washington sent two front-office officials up to New York to clarify why the team had been fined $20,000 for violating the league's noise ordinance. When the opposing team was coming out of the huddle, the Redskins were blasting music until they got to the line of scrimmage. The league said teams cannot play music once the huddle is broken. Speaking of fines, New Orleans head coach Jim Haslett has had to fine various players more than $20,000 during the last two weeks because of things like missing meetings, being late for meetings and missing doctor's appointments. The Saints may be playing well, but some of their players are getting big heads. Sports Illustrated senior writer Peter King covers the NFL beat for the magazine and appears each Sunday on CNN's NFL Preview. Chat with Peter at 1:30 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 2.
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