San Diego Chargers’ players happy to see Norv Turner retained – NFL News
Norv Turner has now been retained as the head coach of San Diego Chargers and that has made the players happy and excited.
The players have long been supporting Turner so the decision did not come out as a surprise. Among the supporters, the strongest has been the quarterback Philip Rivers who said a lot in support of his coach. Rivers said that the
players and not the coach were to be blamed for the loss.
The Chargers failed to reach the playoffs for the second straight time after finishing at 8-8 despite an encouraging start. Just one more victory would have brought them the AFC West title.
Chargers owner Dean Spanos made the final decision and spoke of how supportive the players have been of their coach. He denied having made the decision entirely at the discretion of the players saying the players are generally
supportive of their coach but did admit that the strong support that Turner drew was one of the deciding factors in his decision. He mentioned Philip Rivers and his support saying there was a strong relationship between how the team played and the respect
that Turner command.
So, when Spanos made the announcement, Turner was no doubt delighted but so were the players too and especially Rivers.
“It’s exciting to know that our head coach is coming back. It wasn’t the season we wanted, but I think there’s no doubt keeping that continuity gives us the best chance to win.” Rivers said.
There were others too who were excited and happy at the owner’s decision. Takeo Spikes was one of them who said that he likes Turner a lot and that the coach had earned a lot of respect by driving the team out of the mess they
were in after six straight losses. He said that it was Turner’s encouragement and positive attitude that helped the team fight its way out of that debacle.
Nick Hardwick, Eric Weddle, Nate Kaeding, and Mike Scifres were all happy at Turner’s return to the team.
“It’s great. We keep the guy we want here. We wanted him to lead us. We got to go win it for him and make Dean right that he made the right decision. We’re excited to keep our head guys here and keep the continuity and energy up.”
Weddle said.
Turner already had a contract signed with the Chargers that confirmed his presence till 2013 with the team. However, since evaluations are done every year and changes made, that did not really matter much in the selection of Turner.
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