LOS ANGELES — One of the biggest questions facing the Los Angeles Chargers since hiring head coach Jim Harbaugh and general manager Joe Hortiz is who will have the final say on personnel decisions.
It’s a question that any new GM and coach pairing has to answer, but it’s essential with Harbaugh, who clashed with the only other general manager he has worked with as an NFL head coach.
Harbaugh coached the San Francisco 49ers from 2011 to ’14, guiding them to three straight NFC championships in his first three seasons after they had missed the playoffs for eight seasons before he arrived. After the final game of his fourth season, the 49ers announced they had agreed to mutually part ways a year before Harbaugh’s contract expired.
In January 2015, Harbaugh told the San Jose Mercury News that he was told he wouldn’t be the coach anymore and that “you can call it ‘mutual,’ I mean, I wasn’t going to put the 49ers in the position to have a coach that they didn’t want anymore.”
Harbaugh added that he “didn’t leave the 49ers. I felt like the 49er hierarchy left me.” On Thursday, however, Harbaugh dismissed any rift in San Francisco.
“Don’t believe everything you read,” Harbaugh said. “I remember in the sixth grade, my English teacher came in and presented this concept called critical reading. I wonder how many people would really even know what the definition of that is?”
Teams often hire their general manager before their head coach, giving the general manager input on who the team hires. The Chargers hired Harbaugh first, and owner Dean Spanos said Harbaugh had some input in their GM decision but not significantly. Hortiz, who was the director of player personnel with the Baltimore Ravens, worked with Harbaugh’s brother, John, and already has a relationship with Jim.
With Hortiz sitting in the front row at Harbaugh’s introductory news conference Thursday, Harbaugh compared their working relationship to that of Batman and Robin. Harbaugh said he would be Batman during the season and Robin in the offseason.
Team president John Spanos, to whom Hortiz and Harbaugh will report, said there were discussions about who would have the final say in personnel decisions during the hiring process but declined to say who has that power, calling it “a collaborative process.”
“If you’re ever in a situation where you’re having to look up in your contract who has final say here, you’ve got much bigger problems on your hands,” John Spanos said, “and that’s not what we’re going to do.”
Both Spanoses dismissed the idea that Harbaugh’s previous rifts with management would create issues with the Chargers. Dean Spanos said they had vetted some of Harbaugh’s past employers and didn’t find any issues.
“He has the respect of those people,” John Spanos said. “I’ve never heard anything from anybody that really there was some red flag or something.”
Harbaugh had been linked to the Chargers since the team fired coach Brandon Staley in December. Harbaugh played for the Chargers as a quarterback for two seasons (1999-2000), the Chargers had the lone opening with a quarterback considered to be among the league’s best, and Harbaugh had success at the collegiate and NFL levels.
But the Spanos family had gained a reputation for not being willing to pay for coaches, which has cast doubt on whether they would offer Harbaugh a price that would lure him back to the NFL and away from other teams.
Now that the Chargers have hired Harbaugh, with Dean Spanos saying Thursday that he is committed to “providing whatever support and tools you need to be successful,” the Chargers appear to answer some of the questions about their willingness to spend.
“You guys know what we’ve done, what we spent on players, this new facility, I don’t know where that comes from, nor I don’t really pay a lot of attention to it,” Dean Spanos said. “I made what I think was the best decision for this organization and the Chargers in hiring Jim, and the money had nothing to do with it.”
Chargers general manager Joe Hortiz will have his introductory news conference Tuesday.