Martin Edward "Marty" Schottenheimer (born
September 23, 1943) is a former
American football coach. Over his career,
he has served as head coach of the
Cleveland Browns,
Kansas City Chiefs,
Washington Redskins, and
San Diego Chargers. He holds the peculiar
distinction of being the NFL coach with the most wins since 1966 to
never coach a team in a
Super Bowl (which
was first held in that year). He was fired from his head coaching
position with the San Diego Chargers in 2007, after leading the
Chargers to a 14–2 record but a disappointing second round loss
after a first round bye in the playoffs.
Pro Football playing career
Schottenheimer was born in Canonsburg,
Pennsylvania
. Marty attended high school at Fort Cherry
High School in McDonald, Pennsylvania
. After college, Schottenheimer, a
linebacker, was selected in the fourth round of the
1965 NFL Draft by the
Baltimore Colts and in the
seventh round of the 1965
American Football League draft by
the
Buffalo Bills. He signed with the
Bills and spent the next four (1965, 1966, 1967, and 1968) seasons
with Buffalo, including the Bills' 1965
AFL
Championship season, when he was selected to the
AFL All-Star Team.
In
1969, he joined the
Boston Patriots and spent the next two
seasons with the Pats. He was traded to the
Pittsburgh Steelers in
1971 but was traded again to the Colts before the
beginning of the
1971 season. He
retired from football in 1971 and spent the next several years
working in the real estate industry. Schottenheimer credits his NFL
career as being his inspiration for coaching.
Pro Football coaching career
Schottenheimer's professional coaching career began in
1974 when he became linebackers coach for the
Portland Storm of the
World Football League. In
1975 he was hired as a linebackers coach for the NFL's
New York Giants and in
1977 became
defensive
coordinator. Schottenheimer spent
1978 and
1979 as the linebackers coach for the NFL's
Detroit Lions.
Cleveland Browns
In 1980, he was hired as the defensive coordinator for the
Cleveland Browns. Schottenheimer became
Cleveland's head coach midway through the
1984 season, replacing fired head coach
Sam Rutigliano. Schottenheimer would
remain with the Browns until
1988, amassing a
44-27 (.620) regular-season record and a 2-4 (.333) mark in the
playoffs, including four playoff appearances, three
AFC Central Division titles, and two trips to
the
AFC Championship Game
(both against the
Denver
Broncos).
Kansas City Chiefs
Schottenheimer spent 10 seasons as head coach of the Kansas City
Chiefs from
1989 to
1998
recording an impressive 101-58-1 regular season record (.634)
including three division titles, seven playoff appearances, and a
trip to the AFC Championship game in 1993, losing to the
Buffalo Bills. After a disappointing 7–9
season in 1998, Schottenheimer resigned as Chiefs head coach on
January 11, 1999.
Washington Redskins
After working as a football analyst for
ESPN
from
1999 to
2000,
Schottenheimer was hired as head coach of the
Washington Redskins for the 2001 season.
Schottenheimer's Redskins became the first team in NFL history to
win five consecutive games immediately after losing its first five
games. The Redskins would win eight of their final eleven games to
narrowly miss the post season.
Despite this momentum, in a controversial
move, Daniel Snyder, the owner of the
Redskins, fired Schottenheimer on January 13, 2002 after just one
8–8 season to make room for former University of Florida
head coach Steve
Spurrier, under whom Washington went 12-20 in the next two
seasons.
San Diego Chargers
The
San Diego Chargers hired
Schottenheimer as their 13th head coach on January 29, 2002.
Schottenheimer posted a 47–33 record (.588) with the Chargers. His
success didn't come immediately, as the team posted a 4–12 record
in 2003, thereby "earning" the first overall pick in the draft
(this was the last time that a team with the worst record in the
NFL kept its head coach the following season, even considering the
3 other 4–12 teams that season replaced their head coaches,
Oakland, Arizona, and the New York Giants hiring Norv Turner,
Dennis Green, and Tom Coughlin, respectively). He was named NFL
Coach Of The Year for the
2004 NFL
season. Schottenheimer led the team to 2 playoff appearances,
his 12th and 13th as a head coach. However, both appearances
resulted in disappointing losses to the underdog
New York Jets in overtime in
2005 and the
New England Patriots in
2007, bringing his playoff record to
5–13.Schottenheimer was abruptly fired by San Diego on February 12,
2007. Reasons for his firing include a strained relationship with
general manager A.J. Smith, which reached a breaking point when 4
assistants (
Cam Cameron,
Wade Phillips,
Rob
Chudzinski and
Greg Manusky) left
for positions with other teams. It should be noted that these
coaches left to pursue higher level opportunities with other teams,
instead of merely making a lateral move to another team in which
they would be doing the very same thing they were doing at San
Diego.
Jim Trotter, of the
San
Diego Union Tribune, also believes that Schottenheimer's
insistence that his brother,
Kurt
Schottenheimer, replace Phillips as the defensive coordinator
further strained the relationship between team president
Dean Spanos and Schottenheimer. Spanos had
always been against the idea of allowing relatives to be on the
same coaching staff, even though Schottenheimer's son Brian was the
Chargers' quarterbacks coach. Schottenheimer even went as far to
book a flight to San Diego for his brother, Kurt, against Spanos'
wishes. This act of defiance increased the gap between Spanos and
Schottenheimer.
Dean Spanos released a statement saying "Our fans deserve to know
what changed for me over the last month. When I decided to move
ahead with Marty Schottenheimer in mid-January, I did so with the
expectation that the core of his fine coaching staff would remain
intact. Unfortunately, that did not prove to be the case, and the
process of dealing with these coaching changes convinced me that we
simply could not move forward with such dysfunction between our
head coach and general manager. In short, this entire process over
the last month convinced me beyond any doubt that I had to act to
change this untenable situation and create an environment where
everyone at Charger Park would be pulling in the same direction and
working at a championship level. I expect exactly that from our
entire Charger organization in 2007."
Schottenheimer is still owed $4 million for the final year of his
contract, as the firing was "without cause". Schottenheimer was
replaced as San Diego head coach by
Norv
Turner - ironically the last full-time head coach the Redskins
had before Schottenheimer's arrival.
Television work
Soon after being replaced as head coach of the
San Diego Chargers, he was hired by
ESPN to work as an NFL Insider on the network,
returning to a role he had served in between his coaching stints
with the
Kansas City Chiefs and
the
Washington Redskins. He's
recently been seen on
SportsCenter and
NFL Live.
Head coaching record
Schottenheimer Coaching Tree
Schottenheimer was heavily influenced by
Lou
Saban, his first professional head coach in the American
Football League. In turn, several current NFL Head Coaches trace
their lineage back to Marty Schottenheimer on his
Coaching tree:
Schottenheimer gave many Head Coaches their first coaching jobs.
All of these coaches have coached under Schottenheimer:
His son
Brian Schottenheimer is
the
New York Jets offensive coordinator and his younger
brother
Kurt Schottenheimer
coached the Green Bay Packers' secondary (2006-2008) before he was
let go, along with the majority of the defensive coaching staff,
after a disappointing 2008 season.
References
- Marty's escape route | The San Diego
Union-Tribune
- SignOnSanDiego.com > San Diego Chargers -
Statement from Chargers president Dean Spanos
- SignOnSanDiego.com > San Diego Chargers -
Chargers give Schottenheimer the ax
- Marty Schottenheimer Record, Statistics, and Category
Ranks - Pro-Football-Reference.com
See also
Wikis
Quiz
Map
Search
