SAN DIEGO (KGTV) — Todd Tobias is a former Chargers historian, who has researched and written all about the Chargers of the American Football League, as well as the AFL as a whole. In 2006, he was encouraged to write a book about the Chargers during the Don Coryell days.
So, with Coryell on board, Tobias wrote "Bombs Away - Air Coryell and the San Diego Chargers."
"For whatever reason, the Chargers didn't win a Super Bowl, but that time period people really remember and remember it very very fondly," says Tobias.
San Diegans remember the Coryell years very fondly. The one-time San Diego State head coach joined the NFL and the St. Louis Cardinals before being named the Chargers head coach in 1978. When he arrived in San Diego, he brought with him a fearless, bombs away passing game for which defenses had no answer.
"Coryell was able to influence a passing game in ways that it hadn't been done before. He would throw it and throw it deep, because he had the tools to do it with. He had the strong arm of Dan Fouts, as well as a number of acrobatic receivers like John Jefferson and Wes Chandler. He used the tight end in ways that had never been used before," Tobias says.
Tobias says he and Coryell sat down together seven or eight times when writing the book, and while he knew Coryell was an offensive genius, he learned firsthand how the legendary Chargers coach loved his players, on and off the football field.
"He would start to tell me about a player that he had to release, and that he didn't want to, but it came from higher up. He would almost break down and start crying at that point, some 30 years after the fact," says Tobias. "I think that was really it, just how much this person was absolutely loved."
Coryell's offensive genius changed the game of football on both sides of the ball. NFL history cannot be written without Don Coryell and his "Air Coryell" offense, but for some reason, he was overlooked by the Hall of Fame selection committee for years.
"Most popular one out there was because he didn't win a Super Bowl," Tobias says.
Coryell did not win a Super Bowl, nor did any of his Chargers team reach the big game. Then finally, 37 years after leaving the game, Coryell had his name called as a member of the NFL Hall of Fame Class of 2023.
"It was a sense of joy for all San Diego Chargers fans, and Don Coryell getting into the NFL Hall of Fame is something that brings a lot of joy to a lot of the people that have been here a long time," says Tobias.
Coryell, who passed away in 2010, with be inducted into the Hall of Fame in Canton, Ohio, in early August 2023.
