Chargers keep Turner, Smith for 2012 despite missing playoffs

SAN DIEGO — San Diego Chargers president Dean Spanos didn't feel he had to issue any ultimatums when he made the unpopular decision to bring back coach Norv Turner and general manager A.J. Smith despite the team missing the playoffs for the second straight season.

"Everybody knows in this business that you've got to win. OK?" Spanos said Tuesday. "That's the net bottom line. You don't have to say that."

The Chargers haven't been winning enough lately, which is why Spanos was forced to decide the future of his top football men. The Chargers are 17-16 since the end of the 2009 season, including an embarrassing home playoff loss to the New York Jets in January 2010 that was the Chargers' last postseason appearance.

San Diego went 4-1 at the beginning and end of this season but was undone by a six-game losing streak in the middle. One more win would have earned the Chargers (8-8) the title in the mediocre AFC West.

Feeling that he has a good team with a marquee quarterback in Philip Rivers, "Keeping this intact gives us the best chance to win and change this thing as quickly as possible," Spanos said.

Spanos said he was heartened by the players' response to Turner in winning four of five down the stretch. The one loss, though, a rout at Detroit, eliminated the Bolts from playoff contention.

"I was confident that I had a good chance to stay here," said Turner, who has two years left on his contract, at $3 million a season.

Turner has a 49-31 regular-season record in five years in San Diego but is only 3-3 in the playoffs.

"I would expect we'd have to make the playoffs" to stay employed, Turner said. "If we manage things right and have some good fortune, I imagine we will."

Turner was an unpopular hire in February 2007 after Marty Schottenheimer was fired following a 14-2 season and a home playoff pratfall against New England.

When the news came that Turner would be back for a sixth season, fans reacted angrily on radio talk shows and the Internet. Some threatened to cancel their season tickets.

"Obviously, I'm very sensitive to what the fans have to say," Spanos said. "I've come to the conclusion that I can talk until I'm blue in the face that this is the right thing to do. But until we go out and win and change the course of where this team has been heading, get back into the playoffs and make a serious run for the Super Bowl, anything short of that isn't going to change their minds. We have to go out there next year and win."

LAKE FOREST, ILLINOIS — The Chicago Bears borrowed a page from the Indianapolis Colts in end-of-season house cleaning: fire the GM and keep the coach.

Chicago won four division titles and reached the Super Bowl while Jerry Angelo was general manager. The Bears also crumbled in a big way this season.

Now Angelo's out. Coach Lovie Smith, however, will remain.

Angelo was fired Tuesday following a team collapse marked by injuries to Jay Cutler and Matt Forte and a drug scandal involving Sam Hurd.

One day after the Colts parted with vice chairman Bill Polian and his son, Chris, the general manager, the Bears called for change after an 8-8 season. A questionable draft record and an inability to fill big holes, particularly on offense, led the ouster of Angelo, who had been on the job 11 years.

"I think Jerry achieved a lot as general manager," Bears president Ted Phillips said. "He's a wonderful man, high character. I've enjoyed every day working with him. He's put his life's blood into the Bears."

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