Mike McCoy's Future Was So Bright, He Had To Wear A Visor



A person's choice of hat can fuel endless debates at the intersection of fashion and function.

When Mike McCoy arrived to coach the Chargers few took notice of his preferred head gear.

McCoy is unapologetically a sun visor guy. He wears a team visor day or night, rain or shine. This puts him squarely in the camp of other sideline swamis like Lane Kiffin, Dennis Allen, Chip Kelly, and Josh McDaniels who exist in that nebulous zone of not caring to style their hair (see the Mikes, both the perm and the gelatin comb back of Ditka; the loose curl of current Dolphins coach McDaniels) and thinking that baseball hats are reserved for baseball.

Visors must be like eye black for a coaching staff: Functionally designed to combat the glare of the sun, but subjectively too cool to not to wear at night.

For the record, at the Yacht Club we denounce that form of headgear and vow to never profit from the merchandising of putting the RL logo on one. (Author quickly checks the website store for hypocrisy.)

As McCoy's Chargers tenure went up in smoke after four seasons of potential-teased his press conferences became red-faced, standoffish, combative, and stammering. Like a general cut off from the chain-of-command, left alone too long on the front, he had dug in; clinging to platitudes, baseless optimism, and hubris. The foxhole that he shoveled deeper into became indistinguishable from a vocational grave.

By then his visor became another object (in a growing list) for Chargers fans to ridicule. In some of my Charger chat groups we still call Mike McCoy "The Visor" to this day. The Chargers will see McCoy on Sunday where he will serve as the interim head coach of their opponent, the Tennessee Titans.

The team promoted McCoy from senior offensive assistant on October 13 after firing Brian Callahan following a 1-5 start. Just the title "senior offensive assistant" is a reminder of how much time has passed. Blink and today's young offensive whiz kids are grey-haired senior assistants.

In every career there is are seasons; marked by responsibilities, privileges, and burdens. Those are just the hats we wear.

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When Keenan Allen arrived from Northern California to play for the Chargers he too made waves with a photo taken of him wearing a hat. You probably know the one. Sipping from a straw? Looking down quizzically at someone's camera as though he doesn't understand the punchline of a joke? Forehead wrinkled, his eyes open wider as he takes a pull from his In-and-Out Burger (?) soda?

The photo is real. The pixelization dates it. The photo was currency for memes long before anyone could accuse it of being AI-generated.

Allen only wore the thing that one time to get some burgers, so I'd argue we can give him a pass at this point— even if the photo still pops up like a bad penny in a Charger fan's timeline.

Allen could never be a visor guy though. His personal battle with an ebbing hairline began before he turned 20.

Today that distinguished bald man is four receptions away from becoming the Chargers all-time franchise leader. Allen would likely already own this record if he had accepted his contract being renegotiated in the spring of 2024. But he did not and the Chargers traded him to the Chicago Bears for a 4th round pick. The Chargers used that pick to trade up with the Patriots in the 2nd round to select Ladd McConkey out of Georgia, who some people thought made Allen's skill set a redundancy in Los Angeles.

Those people were wrong.

Allen rejoined the Chargers in August after missing the previous season in a study abroad program. He stands 4 catches away from passing Gates as the Chargers all-time receptions leader on Sunday in Tennessee.

Twelve years ago both Allen and McCoy were both young, unknown, unproven commodities just looking to prove they belonged on the bigger stage. Rookie head coach McCoy was the youngest in the NFL at 41-years-old and Allen was a 21-year-old rookie receiver trying to earn snaps.

When the 2013 Chargers travelled to Tennessee to play the Titans in Week 3 Allen arrived with two more targets (3) from Philip Rivers than McCoy had wins (1). So the strange reunion on Sunday morning has some of the ingredients needed for a Twilight Zone episode.

In truth, McCoy's Chargers legacy should be that he fixed Philip Rivers who had regressed in 2012 playing behind an aging offensive line and Norv Turner's system. The Chargers hired McCoy on January 15, 2013 after four seasons in Denver where he served as the offensive coordinator.

Broncos quarterback Kyle Orton, who would not ever be confused with John Elway, enjoyed a career year under McCoy in 2009, passing for career highs in nearly every category. The following year, the Broncos passing attack ranked seventh in the league, and Orton ranked fourth in passing yards per game. In 2011 McCoy proved the malleability of his play calling to accommodate Tim Tebow's skill-set, and the Broncos led the NFL in rushing, winning both the AFC West and a walk-off playoff victory over the defending AFC champions, the Pittsburgh Steelers.

(The Broncos thanked Tebow by signing veteran quarterback Peyton Manning and shipping Tebow out of town, but that's another story.)

With Manning in the fold the Broncos led the league in scoring, improved their win total by four games and ran away with the division, making McCoy one of the hottest young head coaching candidates of that hiring cycle. The Chargers paired him with another fresh face; hiring general manager Tom Telesco (40-years-old at the time). Ownership perhaps realizing too late that the authoritarian regime of general manager A.J. Smith had curdled the team's chances at a championship.

A quarterback at Long Beach State and Utah, McCoy spent time in NFL Europe and the Canadian Football League before starting his coaching career with the Carolina Panthers in 1999. Inspired by those unorthodox avenues McCoy was one of the innovators of a league that was quickly becoming a passing one.

Because history is unkind to fired coaches with a .412 (at present) winning percentage, let me pour the glass half-full for a moment. After finishing his first season on a four game winning streak and opening the next season with a convincing home win over the defending Super Bowl champion Seattle Seahawks, there was a sample size where McCoy's Chargers went 10-2 and won a playoff game on the road between November and October 2014.

More importantly, McCoy had given Rivers the tools to prosper in the second act of his prolific career.

Though commonplace in today's game, operating out of shotgun in 11 personnel (one running back, one tight end, three wide receivers) and allowing the quarterback more leeway to change plays at the line of scrimmage was a novel approach.

Now armed with multiple plays in mind and empowered like never before to read the opponent's formations, Rivers and the Chargers would barely huddle, preferring instead to line up in their formation with as much time left on the play clock as possible. From there Rivers could, and typically would, use the remaining 20 seconds to survey the defense, change protections, audible routes, and also pretend to do all of the above with dummy calls to keep teams off-balance.

Quick game, screens, mesh concepts, and draw plays to the backs made the 2013 Chargers one of the unlikelier ball-control offenses who dominated time of possession through the air. The offense chewed up the entire play clock as Rivers conducted the opposite of a fast break. It was a slow break, which kept the Chargers methodically moving the chains and simultaneously gave their defense a rest.

Before the season McCoy said it was his goal to have Rivers complete 70 percent of his passes, even though his experienced quarterback's career high for a season was 66 percent in 2010. He fell short of that goal by a smidge; completing 69.5 percent, which was, and remained, his best career mark.

He might have up that half point if Mike McCoy had not have made a certain rookie receiver inactive in Week 1 back in 2013.

Drafted ten years ago in the third round out of the University of California, Berkeley, Allen was the eighth receiver chosen. But at 33-years old if Allen has lost a step you would never know it from his production. Allen currently leads the team in targets (70), catches (48) and yards (479).

Speed was never really Allen's forte anyway.

The former Cal wide receiver was clocked by NFL Network at 4.71 and 4.75 seconds in the 40-yard dash at Allen's pro day confirming that blazing speed and route running are not synonymous.

Cordarrelle Patterson (Minnesota), Tavon Austin (Saint Louis), Robert Woods (Buffalo),  Justin Hunter (Tennessee), Aaron Dobson (New England), and Terrance Williams (Dallas) all came off the board before Allen did at number 76. Every single one of those teams would take Allen in a heartbeat if given another chance.

In 2013, he set Chargers rookie receiving records with 71 receptions and 1,046 yards, despite missing the first game as a healthy scratch.

He has not slowed down since.

The Chargers all-time leader board in career receptions as of November 1, 2025.

Herbert and Allen picked up where they left off. In October Allen caught his 1000th career pass becoming the fastest man in NFL history to that mark. Which is ironic because Allen will never be associated with being the fastest to anything.

He did it in just 159 games across thirteen (and counting) seasons despite missing almost all of 2015 with a torn ACL. Asked about passing Colts receiver Marvin Harrison to that mark Allen dismissed it as a "made up stat."

After becoming the first and only player in history with 400 catches from two different quarterbacks he was not as dismissive.

"That's a real stat," said Allen.

Allen has caught 401 career passes from Herbert after the 520 he caught from Philip Rivers.

The people who question his ability now are asking a different question: If Keenan Allen continues to flambe defenders into his thirties does he deserve a bronze bust in Canton, Ohio?

Whoever makes that bust knows what to put on top of his bronze head. Nothing at all.

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