The Los Angeles Chargers fired Anthony Lynn on Monday after a 7-9 campaign that saw the team lose seven separate outings by one score.
Although Lynn made a valiant effort at the end of the year to save his job by winning his final four games, it wasn’t enough to erase the memories of early-season disappointments.
“This morning I informed Anthony Lynn that we have made the decision to part ways with him as our head coach,” team owner Dean Spanos said in a statement.
“I’m not sure there is another person in this league more respected as a human being than Anthony, and I want to sincerely express my deepest gratitude for his leadership during a time of great change for our organization.
“As we all know, this is a results-driven business and, simply put, the results of the past two years have fallen short of expectations. Moving forward, we will redouble our efforts to both build and maintain a championship-caliber program,” he continued.
“We have been innovative in many facets of our organization in recent years, and we need to carry that over to our entire operation. Our fans need to know that the Los Angeles Chargers are committed to consistent, winning football. The search for a new head coach will begin immediately.”
So given those words of praise, why did Spanos ultimately decided to cut bait? Primarily because Lynn never actually lived up to all the promise he showed in his first campaign with the Chargers in 2018, in which he lead the team to a 12-4 record. That year he led his squad to a Wild Card victory, but since then went 5-11 in 2019 and 7-9 in 2020.
Beyond that, Lynn showed a propensity for bad on-the-field decision-making that simply didn’t make sense for a coach of his caliber.
Now the Chargers will start anew. The organization has a star to build around in Justin Herbert out of Oregon, and whoever the next coach ultimately ends up being will benefit from the stability that the youngster will inevitably bring.
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