Anthony Lynn has been fired.
Monday, the Chargers announced that they’d had parted ways with their head coach after four seasons with the team and roughly a year after he signed a one-year extension.
Chargers owner Dean Spanos released a statement on the move earlier today:
“This morning I informed Anthony Lynn that we have made the decision to part ways with him as our head coach. 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,” Spanos said in a statement.
“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. 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.”
ESPN.com
The move by the Chargers to move on from Lynn shouldn’t come as too much of a surprise, however, there was some speculation that he could be retained. Los Angeles was able to win their final four games of the season while Justin Herbert has injected himself into Rookie of the Year discussion. In the end, though, a 7-9 record in which the Charges lost seven games by one score stood out more for Spanos as well as Lynn failing to find any further success after a 12-4 record and a wild-card playoff victory in 2018.
Lynn also had to deal with plenty of questions regarding his in-game decision making and clock management. One notable instance came during Herbert’s debut against Kansas City — a game that went to overtime. During the extra quarter, Lynn elected to punt on fourth and short instead of going for it. As a result, KC drove down the field and kicked a 52-yard field goal to win the game 23-20.
Lynn also ultimately oversaw the Chargers’ putrid NFL worst special teams unit this year according to FPI.
