LA Chargers: The good, bad and ugly of Anthony Lynn’s tenure

January 12th, 2017. The brand-new LA Chargers announced that Anethony Lynn would be replacing Mike McCoy as the head coach.

It’s now four seasons later, and the LA Chargers are on the hunt for a new coach once again. With a sour taste in their mouths, Charger fans are going to remember Lynn as the coach who couldn’t manage the clock or the coach who’s playing calling was too predictable thanks to a horrific 2020 season.

Lynn’s four years were indeed fascinating to watch, but it wasn’t all bad. Let’s take a look at the good, the bad and the ugly of Anthony Lynn‘s time with the Chargers.

The good: Leadership

While we fans questioned many things during Anthony Lynn’s tenor with the Bolts, one thing that never wavered was leadership. In a video, the Chargers social media posted about Lynn’s time in Los Angeles, stars such as Justin Herbert talked about how much of a leader Lynn truly was, how much he inspired people.

Derwin James mentioned that Lynn was the first player at his house after his injury. Those are things you don’t hear about those every week that make the team better.

thank you, coach. pic.twitter.com/tEFtBvktb6

— Los Angeles Chargers (@Chargers) January 5, 2021

Even off the field, Lynn was a leader. The Lynn Family Foundation built a school in Tanzania and Lynn was there to help make that school brick by brick. Another extremely impressive showing of leadership Lynn displayed during his time with the Chargers.

The bad: His record

Lynn will finish his time in Los Angeles with a record of 33-31. from an outsider’s perspective, a record above .500 is an achievement in professional sports. If you ask Charger fan, that record is disappointing.

Talent on the roster has never been the problem with the Bolts. Hall of Fame-caliber players such as Philip Rivers, Keenan Allen and Joey Bosa have all laced up the cleats under Anthony Lynn, and yet, only one playoff appearance.

Giving credit where credit is due, 2018 was a great season. The Chargers went 12-4 and even won a playoff game, but outside of that, the other three Anthony Lynn seasons haven’t been anything to write home about.

9-7, 5-11, 7-9 are all immensely underwhelming when you go back and look at the roster’s talent. Injuries are no excuse either, especially this past season, but we will get to that.

The ugly: The 2020 season

The best way to describe this season is like seeing a car crash on the highway. You feel bad looking, and you don’t want to look, but you always slow down to see the damage.

This year was a debacle, to put it simply. From play calling to decision making, Anthony Lynn became the new benchmark for bad coaches in the NFL. Charger fans had seen it for weeks, but when the national media started picking up on Lynn’s mistakes, the ship had sunk.

Broadcasting teams were left speechless by some of the errors made. Including but not limited to running the ball after a hail-mary with no timeouts left, punting the ball on 4th and 1 in overtime against the best team in the NFL, or even wasting 30 seconds of clock sending out your kicking team then calling a timeout to send your offense back out on 4th down.

It was a challenging year per usual to be a Charger fan, and quite frankly, it was Anthony Lynn’s fault. This team could have been in the mix for a playoff spot if not for some of Lynn’s mistakes. He cost the LA Chargers at least three games with crucial errors, and I don’t think that’s up for debate.

I wish Anthony Lynn all the best, and I hope he gets a job on an NFL coaching staff, but a coaching change was overdue in Los Angeles. This a team that is ready to win and compete next season.

Who will be their next coach? That’s not for me to answer, but all I know is that the LA Chargers need to make the right choice now before their window to compete at a high level closes.