Last week, the Chargers announced they were moving to Los Angeles after having tortured San Diego fans with mediocre play for 56 years. The move was expectedly met with scorn from San Diegans and mostly indifference from Angelinos, who already have a shitty football team to root for in the Rams.
The week since the announcement has been rather eventful for the Chargers, and not in a great way.
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First, let’s start with the logo. The team announced the move on Jan. 12 by using an interconnected L and A logo that appeared to be a cheap ripoff of the Dodgers logo. Almost immediately, the logo was panned on social media, which led to the Chargers denying that it was even a logo in the first place—they claimed it was only for marketing purposes, which seems like the exact definition of a logo, but whatever—even though they had gone so far as to change the colors of said non-logo to make it look less like the Dodgers logo. Yet that didn’t end the jokes. The response has been so harsh that the Chargers are now saying they will never use that non logo ever again.
Let’s continue. On Saturday, Chargers tight end Jeff Cumberland was introduced during a timeout of the Lakers vs. Clippers game at the Staples Center. They also showed the non-logo on the video board. Both player and logo were booed.
On Tuesday, the Chargers held a press conference at the StubHub Center, their new 30,000 seat temporary home for the next couple of seasons, to introduce new head coach Anthony Lynn. Well, that didn’t go so well either. Let’s let Los Angeles Times columnist Dylan Hernandez tell you what happened:
Days after unveiling and promptly retiring the most reviled logo in Los Angeles sports history, the new head coach of the perpetually bumbling franchise opened his introductory news conference Tuesday at the StubHub Center with an unfortunate slip of the tongue.
“I am so proud to be the head coach of the San Di . . .” Anthony Lynn started.
He caught himself.
“Uh . . . L.A. Chargers,” he said. “Oops.”
On the bright side, Lynn might have inadvertently come up with the team’s unofficial motto: Oops.
It would be bad enough if it ended there. But it doesn’t! Now, a group of San Diego moving companies have collectively said they will not help the team move to Los Angeles. The group has even started a website: wewontmoveyouchargers.com.
Charger fan Ryan Charles, who started the website and is vice president of marketing at Oceanside startup HireAHelper, told USA Today: “We’re continuing to add more companies every hour. We’re still actively calling companies, and companies are signing themselves up through the link on that site. So yeah, I think it’s definitely had an impact.”
So there you have it. This Chargers’ move has been a shitshow so far, and they haven’t even gotten onto the field. In 2016, the Chargers finished 5-11 and were last in the AFC West.
