A.J. Smith: Man with a plan

By: LOREN NELSON - Staff Writer
To heck with the critics and public perception, Chargers general manager A.J. Smith's singular focus is to lead the franchise to a Super Bowl victory | Sunday, January 20, 2008 8:09 AM PST ∞

SAN DIEGO ---- Gray is not part of the color scheme in A.J. Smith's world.

Color isn't even part of the color scheme. There's no space allocated for rainbows in an existence strictly limited to family and football and winning a Super Bowl by whatever means necessary.

The Chargers general manager attacks life purely from a black and white perspective.

There is right and there is wrong. There is A.J.'s way, or no way at is all.

"I don't think I'm stubborn," Smith said. "I just do what I think is right.

"So what is stubborn?"

Some would say stubborn is firing a coach who went 14-2 the previous season. Some would say stubborn is drafting a quarterback despite his repeated vows he'll never play for you. Some would say stubborn is, in successive seasons, letting your star quarterback and leading tackler depart for richer contracts.

No one is saying any of that about Smith now, of course. With the Chargers having reached today's AFC Championship Game against the New England Patriots, stubbornness morphs into single-mindedness. What was once perceived as inflexibility is now an unwavering commitment to what's best for the franchise. Moves that might have been deemed the equivalent of a gambler's addiction for pushing all his chips into the pot now are thought of as the deeply considered strategies of a cold, calculating football savant.

"More than anything, it's his convictions," says Ed McGuire, the Chargers executive vice president of football operations since 1998, when asked what makes Smith unique. "Whatever he does is what he feels is right for the team. He understands what the criticism might be and what the fallout might be.

"Time and time again he as rolled the dice."

Winning, especially winning in the playoffs, can transform even the mostly sharply criticized of general managers into a genius, and Smith certainly looks like one these days.

Replacing Marty Schottenheimer, the coach with 200 regular season triumphs, with recycled Oakland Raiders castoff Norv Turner before this season has proven masterful. Trading Eli Manning, the quarterback who refused to come to San Diego, for Philip Rivers has turned out brilliantly.

Departed fan favorites Drew Brees and Donnie Edwards don't seem like such huge losses anymore. Drafting Antonio Cromartie, limited to just one collegiate start because of injuries, no longer seems like such a reach.

The list goes on.

"I prefer to not be conservative and be safe," says Smith, who recently was rewarded with a new five-year contract reportedly worth $11 million. "The conservative, safe approach makes me ill."

Smith has strip-mined the great football minds of this era ---- Bill Parcells, Jimmy Johnson, Bill Belichick ---- for nuggets of insight. Behind Smith's massive maple desk in his sprawling office, he has a shelves stacked with books promising insight into how the NFL's great franchises were built.

Among Smith's favorite light reading is "Management Secrets of the New England Patriots, Volumes 1 and 2."

Smith recently finished, "The Blueprint: How the New England Patriots Beat the System to Create the Last Great NFL Superpower." His collection also includes David Halberstam's in-depth, dry-as-sawdust look at Belichick titled, "The Education of a Coach."

Notice the trend? If there's been a book providing insight into the construction of the Patriots' dynasty, Smith has probably read it.

"If you want to be successful, I would imagine you would study a successful organization," Smith says. "You wouldn't study a losing organization, would you?"

What Smith has learned is the great NFL franchises he admires most were led by men willing to take risks, to make bold moves, to fail, if it comes to that.

Smith said he remembers hearing Johnson, who won two Super Bowls with the Dallas Cowboys, once say, "You can be safe and good and that's OK, or you can take some chances and be great," Smith says. "I've been thinking about that a lot as the years have gone by.

"I'm not afraid to fail."

Before he dove head first into what he describes as "the precarious world of pro football," Smith was entrenched as a junior high school teacher in Rhode Island.

He had tenure. He had a wife. He and two young children.

He also had a burgeoning passion for the scouting side of football. Smith got one of his first big breaks when former Patriots' boss Frank "Bucko" Kilroy hired him, part-time, on a recommendation from the New York Giants' Jim Trimble.

It was the late 1970s and Smith was literally punching the clock for the Patriots, earning peanuts and hanging out after games with a young coach named Bill Parcells.

"I'd sit on his desk while I waited for the parking lot to clear," Smith says. "Just the two of us talking football."

Smith's wife, Susan, gave him the green-light to pursue a pro football career fulltime, and that eventually led him to the first of his two stints with the Chargers.

"He's a dyed-in-the-wool football man," said Colts general manager Bill Polian, who worked with Smith in Buffalo during the Bills' mind-boggling run of four straight Super Bowl appearances.

Polian was among the first to congratulate Smith last Sunday after the Chargers stunned the Colts in Indianapolis.

"He's done a marvelous job," Polian said. "Look at (the Chargers') front three on defense. How many people in America have heard of any of those guys? And (Jamal Williams and Luis Castillo) are among the best at their positions in the NFL."

Smith's fingerprints were all over the stunning triumph over the defending Super Bowl champion Colts.

Backup running back Michael Turner, who Smith declined to trade despite numerous offers in the offseason, subbed admirably in the second half for the injured LaDainian Tomlinson.

Backup quarterback Billy Volek, plucked from the Tennessee Titans, led the Chargers on one of the greatest touchdown drives in franchise history in the fourth quarter after taking over for injured Philip Rivers.

Rookies Eric Weddle and Legedu Naanee each made highlight reel plays. Cromartie had his 11th interception of the season. Wide receiver Chris Chambers, acquired during the season in a trade with Miami, had a 30-yard touchdown catch.

"I think he's one of the best, if not the best, general mangers in the league," Chargers veteran safety Marlon McCree said about Smith, who was named by Forbes magazine as the NFL's top general manager in 2006.

McCree said Smith's persona of a rough, tough football man who can sometimes be prickly for players, agents and even the media to deal with doesn't fit the A.J. Smith he knows.

"He's a guy people are afraid to go up to and talk to," McCree said. "He's a quiet guy. He doesn't really say much. But I know he's pretty easy to go up to as a player.

"We sit with him on the plane and we joke around. He's been smiling a lot more this year. It's good to see him smile."

Among the many criticisms of Smith had been the perception he'd stocked the franchise with unruly, out-of-control players. In 2006 there were repeated run-ins with authorities, including the shooting of linebacker Steve Foley by an off-duty police officer and an embarrassing practice facility arrest of former Chargers cornerback Terence Kiel on allegations of shipping cases of cough syrup across state lines.

Chargers players have been incident-free so far this season, a fact in which Smith takes great pride.

Smith, knocking on the top of his maple desk, says, "And I hope the phone doesn't ring tonight at 3 a.m. I think it's a part of our success. I think it's a part of winning."

No matter how this season plays out or how he finishes his career, Smith, 58, will forever be linked to the drawn out soap opera involving ex-Chargers coach Marty Schottenheimer and a working relationship that didn't work at all. In the end, communication between the two was nonexistent, unless you count cold nods and emotionless "good mornings" in office hallways.

"I have absolutely no regrets," Smith says about the way things ended with Schottenheimer. "It's all business. It's nothing personal. I have to do what I think is right to help this football team win a championship."

Columnists, TV talking heads and armchair general manages alike howled when Schottenheimer was sent packing and again when his replacement proved to be Turner, who had flamed out not only in Oakland but also in Washington and was considered by many to be nothing more than offensive coordinator material.

After a 1-3 start to the season, the Turner-led Chargers finished 11-5 before beating the Titans and Colts to reach the AFC championship for the first time since the 1994 season.

"When I first came down here the plans were set on what everyone's responsibilities were," Turner said. "And A.J.'s been great about letting our guys, our staff, and me coach this football team.

"And that's all you can ask for."

Smith's old high school, Bishop Hendricken in Warwick, R.I., is within easy driving distance to the Patriots' stadium in Foxborough, Mass. Officials at the school hoped to arrange a ceremony this weekend honoring Smith.

While the Chargers' tight travel plans wouldn't allow for a Friday or Monday ceremony at the school, Smith will assuredly make arrangements for friends and family to attend the game.

"My wife is handling all the ticket requests," he said.

It's a homecoming and much more for Smith. It's a return to his roots and, he hopes, a glimpse of his future. Smith's professional life is singularly focused on turning the Chargers' franchise into a West Coast version of the Patriots. Someday, maybe even better.

He's already elevated the Chargers from the depths of a 1-15 season in 2000, when the franchise was entrenched in laughingstock status. He joined the team for a second tour of duty on Jan. 18, 2001. Smith, as always, is far from satisfied.

"We're making progress," he said, "and now we have an unbelievable challenge that awaits us (today). I don't know what is going to happen, you don't know, no one really knows."

Maybe it will be off to the Super Bowl, just the second such trip in franchise history. Maybe it will be back to the blueprint, where tweaks and tucks and adjustments will be made.

Either way, there's no gray area. Smith has a job to do. He has decisions to make. Right or wrong. Mostly right, the last few years.

"He's amazingly stoic," McGuire says about Smith.

There's no time for emotions when there's work to be done. And no matter what, there's always work to be done.

In Albert John Smith's world, that is the black and white of it.

Contact sports editor Loren Nelson at lnelson@nctimes.com or (760) 740-3551. Comment at sports@nctimes.com.

Quick hits with A.J. Smith

An inside look at the Chargers' general manager

In your iPod: Jimmy Buffett, Four Tops, Temptations, Rod Stewart, Rolling Stones, Dave Matthews ("My daughter got me into Dave Matthews years ago"), Beach Boys.

Last book you read: The Blueprint: How the New England Patriots Beat the System to Create the Last Great NFL Superpower

Last movie you went to: "I don't go to the movies. And I couldn't tell you. That's how long ago it has been."

If you were in a grocery store and bumped into Marty Schottenheimer, what would you say to him? "The same thing I said for a couple of years here. I would nod and, depending on if it was in the morning, I would say, 'good morning.' If it was in the afternoon, I would say, 'good afternoon.' If it was at night, I would say, 'good evening, coach.' "

If you had 30 seconds to evacuate Chargers headquarters, what would you take from your office? "I'd scoop up my photos of my kids."

Did you know?

Smith has a fascination for sports writers and what makes them tick. Really.

Among the football minds Smith respects most are Bill Belichick, Jimmy Johnson and Bill Parcells.

Smith's one guilty pleasure is the occasional May or June getaway to the Caribbean or Hawaii, where lounges on the beach and, as always, thinks about football, "I'm not really working, but in a sense, I am," he says about his daydreaming and note-taking.

What A.J. has to say

Smith on his dear old friend, colleague and boss, John Butler, the Chargers general manager Smith succeeded in 2003 after Butler passed away: "John and I were just two buddies. Almost joined at the hip. John Butler was more than a working relationship. It was much deeper than that."

Smith's final word on ex-Chargers coach Marty Schottenheimer

"People really wanted me to say something about him. So I said it once and I'll say it five years from now when I'm retired and you find me on the beach. The philosophical differences between Coach Schottenheimer and myself, on how to win a world championship, are galaxies apart. And I'll leave it at that."

---- Loren Nelson

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