"It may turn out to be a bad business decision. What Chargers boss Dean Spanos did Tuesday was impossible. He made the angry villagers — the vocal minority — even angrier. And he may feel it in his wallet, at the gate, at the polls, and in perception, where he's being viewed as a spineless Mr. Lubner for not erasing the canvas and making a bold stroke.

But keeping General Manager A.J. Smith and head coach Norv Turner on the payroll after a second consecutive flop was bold, a solid, thought-out football decision. If anything, it proved Spanos is very much his own man, a vertebrate, who runs his company as he sees fit, consulting with people who know football, not the haters who rule cyberspace."