MVN - Most Valuable Network

Chargers Release Three Veterans With Diminished Roles

As the first day of NFL Free Agency began, the San Diego Chargers notified three veterans of their release and availability on the market.  Joining Michael Turner in the annual feeding frenzy are Marlon McCree, Lorenzo Neal and Shane Olivea.

For McCree and Neal, it was expected if unwelcome news.  Marlon McCree saw his safety job overtaken by rookie Eric Weddle.  Lorenzo Neal’s role as a fullback was being diminished in the offense and his age was emphasized by a major injury late in the year.  The fact that Andrew Pinnock did well filling in for him did not help his case.  Shane Olivea lost his starting job at offensive tackle to Jerome McCleary and had fallen out of favor with his coaches.

All three veterans had asked for their release due to knowledge that their playing time and starting status was either history or in jeopardy.  The one that is most surprising to many observers is the release of Olivea.  The Bolts had emphasized last year how important the continuity in the offensive line was to their plans and Olivea had signed a contract a month before the 2006 season that had already paid him nearly 10 million dollars.  It was thought that the Chargers would try to resurrect Olivea in training camp rather than admit that large of a contractual mistake.

Instead, A.J. Smith perhaps gains credibility by showing that he is as ruthless with his own mistakes as he is with those of others.   Instead of trying to save face, he cut the player and is accepting the burden of publicly acknowledging his first major mistake in the awarding of long term contracts to young players.

This is not to say that Smith’s policy is a failed one.  I personally believe that developing your own talent and locking it up long term is the best team-building strategy in sports.  But in any exercise of this sort, you will have missteps.  It is inevitable.  Now we know how Smith will treat his.

This is not to say that Smith is without mistakes, just that this was his first big one in this area.   The failure to get return value on the departure of Drew Brees still stands out as a mistake in the eyes of most analysts, including myself.  What’s more, I believe that the loss of Lorenzo Neal is going to be a similar miscue.

Certainly, honoring the wishes of Lo-Neal is not a bad thing, nor would it be healthy to hang on to him and have his influential presence in the locker room be turned in a negative direction.  However, it was quietly made known to the other NFL teams last week that Lo was available for trade and I wish that Smith had given that process more time to work.

Finally, I’m not certain that Lorenzo’s desire to seek a larger role elsewhere could not have been addressed by speaking to him of his opportunity to get a championship here next year and by emphasizing the positive benefits of ending his career in San Diego.  I’m very sorry to see this fine player leaving the lightning bolts.

McCree was always going to be known here for his failure in the playoffs and while I do feel his presence will be missed, I also understand the logic of letting him leave.  However, I think his role in turning around the attitude and attentiveness of this secondary is underrated.

Interestingly, the player I most agree with releasing is the one everyone is surprised by.

This entry was posted on Friday, February 29th, 2008 at 11:14 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.