The

San Diego Chargers The San Diego Chargers were a professional American football team that played in San Diego from 1961 until the end of the 2016 season, before relocating to Los Angeles, where the franchise had played its inaugural 1960 season. The team is now ...

season A season is a division of the year based on changes in weather, ecology, and the number of daylight hours in a given region. On Earth, seasons are the result of the axial parallelism of Earth's tilted orbit around the Sun. In temperate and pol ...

was the franchise's 34th season in the

National Football League The National Football League (NFL) is a professional American football league that consists of 32 teams, divided equally between the American Football Conference (AFC) and the National Football Conference (NFC). The NFL is one of the ...

(NFL), its 44rth overall and the second under head coach

Marty Schottenheimer Martin Edward Schottenheimer (; September 23, 1943 – February 8, 2021) was an American football linebacker and coach who served as a head coach in the National Football League (NFL) from 1984 to 2006. He was the head coach of the Kansas City ...

. They finished the campaign last in their division with only four wins and earned the #1 pick in the 2004 NFL draft. They played one “home” game during the season, against the Miami Dolphins, at

Sun Devil Stadium Sun Devil Stadium is an outdoor college football stadium in the southwestern United States, on the campus of Arizona State University (ASU) in Tempe, Arizona. It is home to the ASU Sun Devils football team of the Pac-12 Conference. The s ...

Tempe, Arizona , settlement_type = City , named_for = Vale of Tempe , image_skyline = Tempeskyline3.jpg , imagesize = 260px , image_caption = Tempe skyline as se ...

where the Arizona Cardinals played, due to the

Cedar Fire The Cedar Fire was a massive, highly-destructive wildfire, which burned of land in San Diego County, California, San Diego County, California, during October and November 2003. The fire's rapid growth was driven by the Santa Ana wind, causing ...

. The team declined from the previous season, as the Chargers won four games and surrendered the second most points per game (27.6), trailing only the Arizona Cardinals during the season. On April 11, 2003 general manager

John Butler John Butler may refer to: Arts and entertainment *John "Picayune" Butler (died 1864), American performer * John Butler (artist) (1890–1976), American artist *John Butler (author) (born 1937), British author and YouTuber *John Butler (born 1954), ...

died from lymphoma and

A.J. Smith Albert J. Smith (born February 28, 1949) is a former American football player, coach, scout, and executive. He served as a part-time scout for several NFL and USFL teams before joining the Buffalo Bills in 1986, serving as a scout and executive ...

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.

NFL Draft

Personnel

Staff

Roster

Schedule

In addition to their regular games with

AFC West The American Football Conference – Western Division or AFC West is one of the four divisions of the American Football Conference (AFC) in the National Football League (NFL). The division comprises the Denver Broncos, Kansas City Chiefs, Las ...

rivals, the Chargers played teams from the AFC North and

NFC North The National Football Conference – Northern Division or NFC North is one of the four divisions of the National Football Conference (NFC) in the National Football League (NFL). Nicknamed the "Black and Blue Division" for the rough and tough ri ...

as per the schedule rotation, and also played intraconference games against

the Jaguars ''The'' () is a grammatical article in English, denoting persons or things already mentioned, under discussion, implied or otherwise presumed familiar to listeners, readers, or speakers. It is the definite article in English. ''The'' is the m ...

and the Dolphins based on divisional positions from 2002. Oddly, this season marked the first time that the Chargers played

, despite that team existing since

1995 File:1995 Events Collage V2.png, From left, clockwise: O.J. Simpson is O. J. Simpson murder case, acquitted of the murders of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman from the 1994, year prior in "The Trial of the Century" in the United States; The ...

. 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. The Chargers played the Tennessee Titans only once during this period (in 1998) but played the Bengals ''five times'' 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 The Cardinals were an American R&B group of the 1950s. Sharing a legacy with the Orioles, The Cardinals are remembered as one of the best R&B ballad acts to come out of Baltimore. Origins The Cardinals’ career began in 1946 (one year before ...

between 1979 and

inclusive.Arizona Cardinals v New York Jets
/ref> The Week 8 home game against the

Miami Dolphins The Miami Dolphins are a professional American football team based in the Miami metropolitan area. They compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member team of the league's American Football Conference (AFC) East division. The team pla ...

was relocated to

in Tempe,

Arizona Arizona ( ; nv, Hoozdo Hahoodzo ; ood, Alĭ ṣonak ) is a state in the Southwestern United States. It is the 6th largest and the 14th most populous of the 50 states. Its capital and largest city is Phoenix. Arizona is part of the Fou ...

due to a massive wildfire that turned Qualcomm Stadium into an evacuation site. Note: Intra-division opponents are in bold text.

Standings

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:2003 San Diego Chargers Season

San Diego Chargers seasons

San Diego San Diego ( , ; ) is a city on the Pacific Ocean coast of Southern California located immediately adjacent to the Mexico–United States border. With a 2020 population of 1,386,932, it is the List of United States cities by population, eigh ...