2003 San Diego Chargers season

The 2003 San Diego Chargers season was the franchise's 34th season in the National Football League (NFL), its 44rth overall and the second under head coach Marty Schottenheimer. They finished the campaign last in their division with only four wins and earned the #1 pick in the 2004 NFL draft. They played one “home” game during the season, against the Miami Dolphins, at Sun Devil Stadium in Tempe, Arizona where the Arizona Cardinals played, due to the Cedar Fire. The team declined from the previous season, as the Chargers won four games and surrendered the second most points per game (27.6), trailing only the Arizona Cardinals during the season. On April 11, 2003 General manager John Butler died from lymphoma and A.J. Smith a former assistant to Butler took over the position for the next 10 seasons, during the season the Chargers wore a patch on their jerseys with the initials "JB" to commemorate John Butler.

2003 San Diego Chargers season
OwnerAlex Spanos
Head coachMarty Schottenheimer
General managerA.J. Smith
Home fieldQualcomm Stadium
Results
Record4–12
Division place4th AFC West
Playoff finishDid not qualify

NFL Draft
2003 San Diego Chargers draft
Round Pick Player Position College Notes
1 30 Sammy Davis  CB Texas A&M Pick from PHI
2 46 Drayton Florence  CB Tuskegee
2 62 Terrence Kiel  S Texas A&M Pick from GB
3 80 Courtney Van Buren  OT Arkansas–Pine Bluff
4 112 Matt Wilhelm  LB Ohio St
5 149 Mike Scifres  P Western Illinois
6 188 Hanik Milligan *  S Houston
7 229 Andrew Pinnock  FB South Carolina
      Made roster    †   Pro Football Hall of Fame    *   Made at least one Pro Bowl during career

Personnel

Staff
2003 San Diego Chargers staff
Front office
  • Owner – Alex Spanos
  • President/Chief Executive Officer – Dean Spanos
  • Executive Vice President – Michael Spanos
  • Executive Vice President/General Manager – A. J. Smith
  • Assistant General Manager/Director of Player Personnel – Buddy Nix
  • Vice President of Football Operations – Ed McGuire
  • Director of College Scouting – Jimmy Raye
  • Director of Pro Scouting – Fran Foley

Head coaches

Offensive coaches

 Defensive coaches

Special teams coaches

Strength and conditioning

  • Strength and Conditioning – Dave Redding
  • Assistant Strength and Conditioning – Matt Schiotz

[1]

Roster
2003 San Diego Chargers final roster
Quarterbacks

Running backs

Wide receivers

Tight ends

 Offensive linemen

Defensive linemen

 Linebackers

Defensive backs

Special teams

 Reserve lists


Practice squad


Rookies in italics

Schedule

In addition to their regular games with AFC West rivals, the Chargers played teams from the AFC North and NFC North as per the schedule rotation, and also played intraconference games against the Jaguars and the Dolphins based on divisional positions from 2002.

Oddly, this season marked the first time that the Chargers played the Jaguars, despite that team existing since 1995. This occurred due to old NFL scheduling formulas in place prior to 2002, whereby teams had no rotating schedule opposing members of other divisions within their own conference, but played interdivisional conference games according to position within a season’s table.[2] The Chargers played the Tennessee Titans only once during this period[3] (in 1998) but played the Bengals five times[4] during these years.

In preceding years, even longer gaps between two teams playing each other had occurred. For instance the Jets never opposed the Cardinals between 1979 and 1995 inclusive.[5]

The Week 8 home game against the Miami Dolphins was relocated to Sun Devil Stadium in Tempe, Arizona due to a massive wildfire that turned Qualcomm Stadium into an evacuation site.[6]

Week Date Opponent Result Record Kickoff Time Attendance
1 September 7, 2003 at Kansas City Chiefs L 14–27 0–1 CBS 10:00am
78,048
2 September 14, 2003 Denver Broncos L 37–13 0–2 CBS 1:15pm
65,445
3 September 21, 2003 Baltimore Ravens L 24–10 0–3 CBS 1:15pm
52,028
4 September 28, 2003 at Oakland Raiders L 34–31 0–4 CBS 1:05pm
54,078
5 October 5, 2003 at Jacksonville Jaguars L 27–21 0–5 CBS 1:05pm
48,954
6 Bye
7 October 19, 2003 at Cleveland Browns W 26–20 1–5 CBS 10:00am
73,238
8 October 27, 2003 Miami Dolphins L 26–10 1–6 ABC 6:00pm
73,014
9 November 2, 2003 at Chicago Bears L 20–7 1–7 CBS 10:00am
61,500
10 November 9, 2003 Minnesota Vikings W 42–28 2–7 FOX 1:05pm
64,738
11 November 16, 2003 at Denver Broncos L 37–8 2–8 CBS 1:05pm
75,217
12 November 23, 2003 Cincinnati Bengals L 34–27 2–9 CBS 1:15pm
52,069
13 November 30, 2003 Kansas City Chiefs L 28–24 2–10 CBS 1:15pm
57,671
14 December 7, 2003 at Detroit Lions W 14–7 3–10 CBS 10:00am
61,544
15 December 14, 2003 Green Bay Packers L 38–21 3–11 FOX 1:15pm
64,978
16 December 21, 2003 at Pittsburgh Steelers L 40–24 3–12 CBS 1:05pm
52,527
17 December 28, 2003 Oakland Raiders W 21–14 4–12 CBS 1:15pm
62,222

Standings
AFC West
W L T PCT DIV CONF PF PA STK
(2) Kansas City Chiefs 13 3 0 .813 5–1 10–2 484 332 W1
(6) Denver Broncos 10 6 0 .625 5–1 9–3 381 301 L1
Oakland Raiders 4 12 0 .250 1–5 3–9 270 379 L2
San Diego Chargers 4 12 0 .250 1–5 2–10 313 441 W1

References
  1. 2012 San Diego Chargers Media Guide. pp. 263–264. Archived from the original on October 15, 2014. Retrieved October 28, 2014.
  2. History of the NFL’s Structure and Formats, Part Two
  3. San Diego Chargers v Tennessee Titans/Houston Oilers
  4. San Diego Chargers v Cincinnati Bengals
  5. Arizona Cardinals v New York Jets
  6. Dillon, Jeff (October 26, 2003). "Week of Fire -- Fire crews battle to limit damage from raging wildfires". The San Diego Union-Tribune. Archived from the original on September 7, 2008. Retrieved September 5, 2016.CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link)
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