The Chargers broke ground \u2013 and bread \u2013 with the media for the 2015 season with a special meet-and-greet session following the team\u2019s second practice Sunday, Aug. 2 at Chargers Park on Murphy Canyon Road in Kearny Mesa.
\nThere was a preview of some new concession offerings this year featuring jalape\u00f1o popper topped sliders, spicy Bloody Mary\u2019s and cheesesteak sandwiches.
\nChargers general manager Tom Telesco then made introductions noting, “It\u2019s only the second day so we\u2019ve still got some work to do, but the guys are in great shape.”
\n“They listen to him (McCoy), implicitly,” said Telesco of head coach Mike McCoy, who\u2019s entering his third season at the helm of the Chargers.
\n“We can\u2019t wait to get back to Qualcomm and play some football. I\u2019m excited about it,” said Telesco before lateraling further comment to McCoy, who thanked the press and the community “for all your support.”
\nThe coach, however, was reticent to discuss the possibility of the Chargers moving to Los Angeles.
\n\u00a0“I\u2019m paid to win games here,” McCoy said. “The Spanos family brought me and Tom here for one reason. And that\u2019s for us to lead the organization and win football games. “I\u2019m worried about tonight\u2019s meetings, tomorrow\u2019s practice, and finding a way to beat Detroit in the opener. That\u2019s all I can control.”
\nIn 2014, the Chargers matched their 9-7 record from the previous year, but unlike 2013, it wasn\u2019t good enough to get them into the playoffs. In 2013 they beat the Cincinnati Bengals in the first round of the playoffs, then lost to Super Bowl-bound Denver.
\nMcCoy said that won\u2019t be good enough this year.
\n“We\u2019ve got to take it to the next level,” he said. “We\u2019ve got to win week in and week out and dominate teams and start blowing teams out. That\u2019s our goal: to energize the city of San Diego and everything with the performance on Sundays.”
\nDiscussing the Chargers top draft pick, running back Melvin Gordon from Wisconsin, McCoy said the team was re-committing itself to improve that position this year.
\n“This year we\u2019ve got to get back to running the football the way it\u2019s supposed to be run in this league,” he said. “Last year we just didn\u2019t get it done. You saw the way we ran the ball in practice today. That\u2019s the way we want to run it.”
\nRegarding replacing all-star tight end Antonio Gates, who is suspended the first four games of the season, McCoy said, “It\u2019s an opportunity for other guys (to step up). We have a lot of talent on the offensive side.”
\nAsked about the fresh crop of receivers that quarterback Phillip Rivers will be tossing to, McCoy commented, “You see somebody like Steve Johnson that we got from San Francisco who had over 1,000 yards a couple of years for Buffalo. You see some of the circus catches he\u2019s making out there, a very explosive player. There\u2019s a lot of depth there. We have a lot of receivers that have some skill that play for us. It\u2019s a quarterback\u2019s dream.”
\nMcCoy was asked how he would react this year to a blowout loss, like the 37-0 drubbing they got in Miami last year.
\nNoting “every game is a big deal,” McCoy went on to say that you shake any loss off and move forward.
\n“Regardless of whatever else you\u2019re doing, you\u2019re always preparing for the next game,” he said. “As bad as it was there in Miami, we kept on grinding it out. You\u2019re always working to improve the football team regardless of the score.”
\nMcCoy saved his best advice for last.
\n“The real focus is, we\u2019re trying to get better every single day,” he said. “The key is just to be playing your best football at the end of the year, not the beginning. That\u2019s the big message to the team.”<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Chargers broke ground \u2013 and bread \u2013 with the media for the 2015 season with a special meet-and-greet session following the team\u2019s second practice Sunday, Aug. 2 at Chargers Park on Murphy Canyon Road in Kearny Mesa. There was a preview of some new concession offerings this year featuring jalape\u00f1o popper topped sliders, spicy […]<\/p>","protected":false},"author":726,"featured_media":272780,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"Chargers coaches, players staying focused on improving","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[11551,11600,11553],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-272779","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-sdnews","category-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/272779","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/726"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=272779"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/272779\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/272780"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=272779"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=272779"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=272779"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}