Digging deep enough to try to really understand what has gone wrong with the Chargers might not unearth enough evidence solely contained in this season to support a decision to fire Mike McCoy.
But such mining would be trying too hard.
Right on the surface are ample reasons why the Chargers must change head coaches.
Whether the Chargers are playing here or in Los Angeles, McCoy is a liability externally and a luxury internally.
Anger _ and worse, apathy _ among fans. Ambivalence among players.
There is a cry from fans that can't be ignored and a lack of a cry from players that can't be ignored.
To be clear, Chargers players don't seem to want McCoy gone nor particularly care whether he stays.
Largely, there is tepid support for continuity. That is the preference of most players in most instances. While pockets of dissenters who pick at timeout usage or a series of play calls or philosophy have been easy to find for months, you could also go in a locker room of 60-some guys and find backers of Trump and Clinton and Daffy Duck for President.
Basically, what you get by way of support for McCoy is a shrug.
If the strongest argument for retaining McCoy is that the head coach wouldn't make much of a difference, then that's no argument at all.
Now, players know McCoy hasn't cost them nearly as dearly as many outside the organization believe.
Vince Lombardi could be reincarnated with the blood of Krzyzewski and Lasorda and all three coaching Harbaughs. And if this FrankenLombardi was the Chargers head coach this season, he would still have needed Jesus Christ as his head athletic trainer to go 10-6.
Pinning this all on McCoy is a narrow, inaccurate view.
But the same blah blah boringness that contributes to fans' aggravation begets a lack of attachment from players. Not that players publicly and passionately stumping for their coach should be the determinant. (See Norv Turner getting one year too long in 2012.) But the absence of a strong feeling one way or the other by the men supposedly marching into battle on the head man's orders certainly does nothing to offset McCoy's 27-34 record.
This is not just a third straight season with no playoffs, it is a second straight season not even sniffing the postseason. It was comical to see a CBS television graphic Sunday with the Chargers listed among the teams "In the Hunt." That dog doesn't hunt any more than McCoy's Chargers finish games.
And to think the Chargers should be much better than their 5-8 record, having lost more playing time and more key players to injury than any team in the NFL, well, that's just not in step with reality.
But McCoy's job status has been a tenuous circumstance in this space since his first September. His meekness and management were dubious then and have not evolved. This is at least the fourth column saying he should go.
This was McCoy's prove-it year. His team went 4-12 last season. That was after a 1-3 finish fumbled away a playoff spot in 2014.
When you're at that podium saying the same thing loss after loss, the problem might not be that you're boring. It might be that you're telling the truth _ that you simply can't coach the mistakes away.
So, whether you're entirely to blame or whether your assistants are doing a bang-up job preparing an abundance of scrubs for an abundance of playing time, it's time to find a crew that can effect different results.
This is unfair to some. Really, it's difficult to imagine someone doing more than secondary coach Ron Milus and linebackers coach Bob Babich, among others. And if Ken Whisenhunt leaves, Philip Rivers would be playing under a fourth offensive coordinator in six years _ starting over again as he enters the final years of his career.
Also, another bloodletting would be expensive to the Spanos family, which is already having a lousy year in terms of local revenue, what with the paltry attendance and Measure C campaign costs. When the Chargers decided to keep McCoy and gut his staff after last season, they had to give him an extra year on his contract in order to portray stability to the assistants they sought to hire. They also gave those assistants multiyear deals. There is no telling whether that will play into the decision on whether to swing some axes.
This is a football decision more than anything. Far more than anything.
But it is business as well. More than immediate expenditure, it is long-term investment.
Staying in San Diego means mending fences. Moving to Los Angeles means building bridges.
Angelenos are a discerning group. They're not smarter than us. They live in L.A., after all. What makes them persnickety is their copious choices.
Dodgers, Lakers, Kings. Clippers, Ducks, Angels. UCLA, USC. Rams. Plus, they've had two decades-plus of getting the best games on TV every Sunday time slot.
The Rams fired Jeff Fisher on Monday. Basically, L.A.'s message was, "Welcome back, now entertain us."
They take McCoy up the road, they better start winning again right away. That's a milquetoast misstep waiting to happen.
Same if they stay here, as I think they will.
San Diego Chargers fans will love anyone affiliated with the Chargers if the team wins. I'd heard vicious, nasty things about Norv Turner for years when, near the end of the 2009 season, I saw him walk into a crowded restaurant to a standing ovation. That can be McCoy.
John Spanos would have to be absolutely certain McCoy is the coach that will facilitate that happening if the decision is to bring him back. And still, it wouldn't play.
Spanos' father, Dean, gave Turner another chance in '12. I think the son knows, in hindsight, that was a mistake.
It would be again in this instance.
Not just because the public is ready to go away and the players could go either way. But that's part of it.
