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This looks real familiar, both for Marty Schottenheimer and the hapless San Diego Chargers.
The Chargers go into their bye weekend winless and seemingly clueless about how to end a nine-game losing streak dating to December.
After Schottenheimer declared the Chargers ``a damn good football team'' at the start of the season, they're the NFL's only 0-5 team and in danger of missing the playoffs for the eighth straight season.
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``Where we are is absolutely and unequivocally unacceptable,'' Schottenheimer
said. ``We're going to do everything that becomes necessary to get this thing
turned around.'' NFL Tickets
By getting this weekend off, the Chargers will have extra time to stew over their latest loss, 27-21 to the previously winless Jacksonville Jaguars.
``It's plain and simple: We need to develop an attitude about dealing with things that don't go exactly the way we like them to do,'' Schottenheimer said. ``We need to take charge and go change the things we don't like, and don't enjoy, and we are going to do that.''
What the Chargers have been doing is losing, and with regularity. Dating to their second-half collapse last year, the Chargers have lost 12 of 14 games.
``I'm not going to exclude the possibility of anything in the effort to get this thing turned around,'' Schottenheimer said.
Schottenheimer is 8-13 with the Chargers, and is off to his second 0-5 start in three seasons. The Washington Redskins also started with a five-game losing streak under Schottenheimer in his only season coaching them, in 2001. The 'Skins rallied to finish 8-8, but Schottenheimer lost a power struggle with owner Dan Snyder and was fired.
The Chargers' main problem has been on defense. They clearly miss linebacker Junior Seau and safety Rodney Harrison. While the two were getting older and losing a step, they were still the team's undisputed leaders with remarkable work ethic. Yet they were unceremoniously dumped; Seau, a 12-time Pro Bowler, was traded to Miami and Harrison was released, ending up in New England. NFL Tickets
San Diego had the NFL's worst pass defense last year, and things haven't improved much. They're ranked 28th in both run and pass defense, and 30th overall. The Chargers' starting cornerbacks are rookie Sammy Davis and Quentin Jammer, who started just four times as a rookie last year.
The Chargers lost to rookie quarterbacks twice in three weeks, and last week made Jacksonville's Byron Leftwich look like a veteran as he threw for 336 yards and two scores in his second career start.
Last week the Chargers wasted Drew Brees' passing performance that included 296 yards and three scores.
The previous week, the Chargers blew a 14-point lead at Oakland, wasting LaDainian Tomlinson's brilliant 187-yard rushing performance.
Tomlinson was a Pro Bowler last year after setting the Chargers' franchise record with 1,683 yards. But he's grown increasingly frustrated as the Chargers fall behind and have to go away from the run, although they've done so surprisingly early in some games. NFL Tickets
Things were so bad at Jacksonville that Tomlinson, who entered ranked third in the league in rushing, finished with only 38 yards on 10 carries. In the season-opening loss at Kansas City, he was held to 34 yards, the second-lowest output of his career.
Wide receiver David Boston has been enigmatic after signing a $47 million free agent deal. He was suspended for the Oakland game after getting into a heated argument with the team's strength coach and a shouting match with injured wideout Reche Caldwell before a loss to Baltimore.
At Jacksonville, Boston had 14 catches for 181 yards.
Schottenheimer said he's not worried about his job.
``I have no concern whatsoever about it. I've never, never, never had any concern about it at any other place I've been. I have no concern here.''
General manager A.J. Smith said Schottenheimer's job is safe.
``He's the coach. And we're under way, and once you're under way, you just go,'' Smith said. ``That's all I can say. Obviously, we are all disappointed with the start, but we're under way and the reality is we're 0-5.'' NFL Tickets
Schottenheimer, the NFL's ninth winningest coach, said he knows what it'll take to fix the Chargers.
``And it is frustrating when you know how to do it, and you know it can be done, and you're not getting it finished off,'' he said. ``But all the pressure that is put on me is self-imposed.''