{"id":9470,"date":"2017-01-01T21:25:20","date_gmt":"2017-01-02T02:25:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonprofootball.com\/?p=9470"},"modified":"2017-01-01T21:25:20","modified_gmt":"2017-01-02T02:25:20","slug":"chargers-fire-head-coach-mike-mccoy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/2017\/01\/01\/chargers-fire-head-coach-mike-mccoy\/","title":{"rendered":"San Diego Chargers Fire Head Coach Mike McCoy"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Black Monday came a day early for <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.pro-football-reference.com\/search\/search.fcgi?pid=McCoMi21,McCoMi22&amp;search=Mike+McCoy&amp;utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Mike McCoy<\/a><\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>The San Diego Chargers fired him shortly after the team&#8217;s 37-27 loss to the Kansas City Chiefs to close out the season Sunday. It dropped San Diego to 5-11 on the year. Even though it was an improvement over last year&#8217;s 4-12 campaign, 2016 will be the third straight year the Chargers miss the playoffs.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Mike McCoy has been dismissed as head coach.<\/p>\n<p>INFO: <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/uECp1NbJTy\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">https:\/\/t.co\/uECp1NbJTy<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/T64O9WryGa\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">pic.twitter.com\/T64O9WryGa<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Los Angeles Chargers (@chargers) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/chargers\/status\/815734543298621440?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">January 2, 2017<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<h2><strong>San Diego Chargers Fire Head Coach Mike McCoy<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>McCoy&#8217;s tenure with the Chargers got off to a torrid start. The team went 9-7 in his first year as head coach which was good enough to make the playoffs. They then pulled off a 27-10 upset of the Cincinnati Bengals in the wild card round and narrowly lost to eventual Super Bowl runners-up Denver Broncos 24-17 the following week.<\/p>\n<p>A year later, San Diego replicated their regular season record and finished second in the AFC West. But things ended on a sour note with the Chargers losing three of their last four. It included a 19-7 loss to division rival Kansas City in the season finale, a game they needed to qualify for the postseason.<\/p>\n<p>What did McCoy in, though, was the previous two seasons. San Diego finished dead last in the division both years and finished with a combined record of 9-23. Inability to run the football played a part in the team&#8217;s struggles. The Chargers finished no better than 27th in rushing offense and were second from bottom in 2015.<\/p>\n<p>Given McCoy&#8217;s offensive background, quarterback <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.pro-football-reference.com\/players\/R\/RivePh00.htm?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Philip Rivers<\/a><\/strong>&#8216; play in 2016 didn&#8217;t help his cause. Though the 13-year veteran threw for 4,000 yards for the eighth time in his career, he also had 19 interceptions. That number was the most in the NFL among regular starters.<\/p>\n<p>This is a complicated time for the Chargers franchise. The team&#8217;s future in San Diego is uncertain as rumors owner <strong>Dean Spanos<\/strong>\u00a0will move the team north to Los Angeles remain rampant. A ballot measure to help fund a new stadium with hotel taxes <a href=\"http:\/\/www.usatoday.com\/story\/sports\/nfl\/chargers\/2016\/11\/09\/san-diego-voters-overwhelmingly-reject-chargers-stadium-plan\/93531020\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">came nowhere close to passing<\/a> in November.<\/p>\n<p>The 44-year-old finishes his four-year tenure as Chargers head coach with a career record 28-38 combining regular season and playoff games.<\/p>\n<div class=\"getty embed image\" style=\"background-color: #fff; display: inline-block; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue',Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif; color: #a7a7a7; font-size: 11px; width: 100%; max-width: 594px;\">\n<div style=\"padding: 0; margin: 0; text-align: left;\"><a style=\"color: #a7a7a7; text-decoration: none; font-weight: normal !important; border: none; display: inline-block;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.com\/detail\/629157754\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Embed from Getty Images<\/a><\/div>\n<div style=\"overflow: hidden; position: relative; height: 0; padding: 67.676768% 0 0 0; width: 100%;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" style=\"display: inline-block; position: absolute; top: 0; left: 0; width: 100%; height: 100%; margin: 0;\" src=\"\/\/embed.gettyimages.com\/embed\/629157754?et=Aa-Sza8qRuxbRgEWsluHAw&amp;viewMoreLink=on&amp;sig=nsEUcpeaLk0hl8HxXxpN3kw7X9xJLObpSWe6gbJC2FI=&amp;caption=true\" width=\"594\" height=\"402\" frameborder=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\"><\/iframe><\/div>\n<p style=\"margin: 0;\">\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The San Diego Chargers announced Sunday evening that head coach Mike McCoy has been relieved of his duties after four seasons in charge.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":742,"featured_media":9474,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[36,18],"tags":[1346,61,1371,40,362,334],"class_list":["post-9470","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nfl-news","category-chargers","tag-dean-spanos","tag-football","tag-mike-mccoy","tag-nfl","tag-philip-rivers","tag-san-diego-chargers"],"modified_by":"John Bava","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9470","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/742"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9470"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9470\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9474"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9470"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9470"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9470"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}