2003 San Diego Chargers season

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2003 San Diego Chargers season
Owner
Qualcomm Stadium
Results
Record4–12
Division place4th AFC West
Playoff finishDid not qualify
Pro BowlersNone[1]
AP All-Pros

The

John Butler died from lymphoma and A. J. Smith
, a former assistant to Butler, took over the position for the next 10 seasons; during the season the Chargers wore a patch on their jerseys with the initials "JB" to commemorate John Butler.

For the first time since 1989, Junior Seau was not on the opening day roster.

NFL draft

2003 San Diego Chargers draft
Round Pick Player Position College Notes
1 30 Sammy Davis  CB
Texas A&M
 Pick from PHI
2 46 Drayton Florence  CB Tuskegee
2 62 Terrence Kiel  S Texas A&M Pick from GB
3 80 Courtney Van Buren 
OT
 Arkansas–Pine Bluff
4 112 Matt Wilhelm  LB Ohio St
5 149 Mike Scifres 
P
 Western Illinois
6 188 Hanik Milligan *  S Houston
7 229 Andrew Pinnock  FB South Carolina
      Made roster    †   Pro Football Hall of Fame    *   Made at least one Pro Bowl during career

Personnel

Staff

2003 San Diego Chargers staff

Front office

  • Owner – Alex Spanos
  • President/chief executive officer – Dean Spanos
  • Executive vice president – Michael Spanos
  • Executive vice president/general manager – A. J. Smith
  • Assistant general manager/director of player personnel – Buddy Nix
  • Vice president of football operations – Ed McGuire
  • Director of college scouting – Jimmy Raye
  • Director of pro scouting – Fran Foley

Head coaches

Offensive coaches

Defensive coaches

Special teams coaches

Strength and conditioning

  • Strength and conditioning – Dave Redding
  • Assistant strength and conditioning – Matt Schiotz

[3]

Roster

2003 San Diego Chargers final roster
Quarterbacks

Running backs

Wide receivers

Tight ends

Offensive linemen

Defensive linemen

Linebackers

Defensive backs

Special teams

Reserve lists


Practice squad


Rookies in italics
 53 active, 12 inactive, 4 practice squad

Regular season

Schedule

In addition to their regular games with AFC West rivals, the Chargers played teams from the AFC North and NFC North as per the schedule rotation, and also played intraconference games against the Jaguars and the Dolphins based on divisional positions from 2002.

Oddly, this season marked the first time that the Chargers played the Jaguars, despite that team existing since 1995. This occurred due to old NFL scheduling formulas in place prior to 2002, whereby teams had no rotating schedule opposing members of other divisions within their own conference, but played interdivisional conference games according to position within a season’s table.[4] The Chargers played the Tennessee Titans only once during this period[5] (in 1998) but played the Bengals five times[6] during these years.

In preceding years, even longer gaps between two teams playing each other had occurred. For instance the Jets never opposed the Cardinals between 1979 and 1995 inclusive.[7]

The Week 8 home game against the

massive wildfire that turned Qualcomm Stadium into an evacuation site.[8]

Week Date Opponent Result Record Venue Attendance Recap
1 September 7 at Kansas City Chiefs L 14–27 0–1 Arrowhead Stadium 78,048 Recap
2 September 14 Denver Broncos L 13–37 0–2
Qualcomm Stadium
 65,445 Recap
3 September 21 Baltimore Ravens L 10–24 0–3 Qualcomm Stadium 52,028 Recap
4 September 28 at Oakland Raiders L 31–34 (OT) 0–4 Network Associates Coliseum 54,078 Recap
5 October 5 at Jacksonville Jaguars L 21–27 0–5
Alltel Stadium
 48,954 Recap
6 Bye
7 October 19 at Cleveland Browns W 26–20 1–5 Cleveland Browns Stadium 73,238 Recap
8 October 27 Miami Dolphins L 10–26 1–6
Sun Devil Stadium
 73,014 Recap
9 November 2 at Chicago Bears L 7–20 1–7 Soldier Field 61,500 Recap
10 November 9 Minnesota Vikings W 42–28 2–7 Qualcomm Stadium 64,738 Recap
11 November 16 at Denver Broncos L 8–37 2–8
Invesco Field
 75,217 Recap
12 November 23 Cincinnati Bengals L 27–34 2–9 Qualcomm Stadium 52,069 Recap
13 November 30 Kansas City Chiefs L 24–28 2–10 Qualcomm Stadium 57,671 Recap
14 December 7 at Detroit Lions W 14–7 3–10 Ford Field 61,544 Recap
15 December 14 Green Bay Packers L 21–38 3–11 Qualcomm Stadium 64,978 Recap
16 December 21 at Pittsburgh Steelers L 24–40 3–12
Heinz Field
 52,527 Recap
17 December 28 Oakland Raiders W 21–14 4–12 Qualcomm Stadium 62,222 Recap

Note: Intra-division opponents are in bold text.

Week 1: at Kansas City Chiefs

Week 1: San Diego Chargers at Kansas City Chiefs
Period 1 2 34Total
Chargers 0 0 7714
Chiefs 14 10 3027

at Arrowhead Stadium, Kansas City, Missouri

Game information

Week 2: vs. Denver Broncos

Game information

Week 3: vs. Baltimore Ravens

Game information

Week 4: at Oakland Raiders

Game information