Source:Beau Boone– Johnny Unitas unfortunately deserves to be the cover photo of the 1973 San Diego Chargers.

Source:The New Democrat

“When rebuilding a team, it is normal to face a good deal of challenges. The 1973 Chargers faced perhaps every challenge that they could run into, culminating the season into a nightmare.”

From Beau Boone

If there is anything that’s good about the 1973 San Diego Chargers, it’s that they drafted future Hall of Fame QB Dan Fouts and their 1973 nightmare season, led to the Chargers hiring Tommy Prothro in 1974, who really is responsible for rebuilding the Chargers from the draft.

It’s not Don Coryell who rebuilt the Chargers and turned them into consistent winners and even a Super Bowl contender in the late 1970s and early 1980s. That credit should go to Tommy Prothro. Even though Prothro didn’t have a single winning season in his 4 plus years in San Diego, he rebuilt their defense with draft choices like Woodrow Lowe, Don Goode, Gary Johnson, Louis Kelcher, and Fred Dean. He also drafted WR John Jefferson, who was one of QB Dan Fouts favorite targets in San Diego in the late 1970s.

To give you an idea about bad the 1973 Chargers were: they were 25th in points scored and 26th in points given up. Which should give you a good idea that they were blown out a lot in 1973. Most teams that finished at 2-11, tend to get blown out a lot. They were 19th in total offense, in a 26 team league and 22nd in defense.

The Chargers had a 40 year old QB in Johnny Unitas and a 22 year old QB in Dan Fouts. So their choice at QB, was either a broken down, over the hill 40 year old QB, or a kid who just finished college, no experience in the NFL and now you want him to lead your NFL team. But when you hit bottom, you can’t get any worst and things did get gradually better for the Chargers after 1973.