Cocaine, Disco, And A Football Revolution

Summary

Podcast Summary: "Cocaine, Disco, And A Football Revolution"

Podcast: The Lead
Host: Tiffany Oshinsky (with reporting by Zach Kiefer)
Date: December 20, 2023
Topic: The revolutionary San Diego Chargers of the late 1970s and 80s, the innovative “Air Coryell” offense, and the legacy, scandals, and wild stories surrounding the team.

---

Overview of the Episode

This episode dives into the underappreciated yet transformative San Diego Chargers teams of the late 1970s and early 80s. While most NFL fans recall teams like the San Francisco 49ers for ushering in the era of modern offenses, the Chargers’ coach Don Coryell and quarterback Dan Fouts quietly blazed a trail that irrevocably shaped today’s passing-centric NFL. Alongside football innovation, the episode covers the team’s wild off-field stories—including rumors of cocaine use and a mysterious gunshot wound—making the Chargers both legendary and notorious figures in football lore.

---

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Forgotten Revolutionaries of Offense

• San Diego Chargers as Pioneers: The team’s impact on football’s evolution is comparable to the 49ers, though less publicized.
  • [01:52] Tiffany: “Today, Zach Kiefer... tells the story of the high flying but somewhat forgotten San Diego Chargers... and the team's visionary coach who finally got his due.”
• Don Coryell’s Arrival Changes Everything:
  • [04:02] September 25, 1978, marks a turning point with Don Coryell taking over after a disastrous game and coach resignation.
  • [05:39] “He saw Don Coryell walk to the front of the room, and Dan Fouts mutters under his breath, ‘holy bleep. This is amazing.’”

2. Coryell’s Vision: All-Out Passing and Innovation

• The Air Coryell Offense:
  • [07:15] The introduction of plays designed for deep shots; “just throw it down the field.”
  • [08:11] Zach: “Coryell had no interest in sideline to sideline. He had pylon to pylon. He wanted to throw it up in the air.”
• Tight Ends as Weapons:
  • [09:00] Coryell drafted tight end Kellen Winslow to be a game-breaking receiver, innovating the “move” tight end position we see today.
  • [09:51] The ripple effect: Defenses reacted by developing the nickel and dime packages now ubiquitous in the NFL.

3. Dan Fouts: The Gritty Field General

• Fouts’ Attitude and Leadership Style:
  • [11:21] Zach: “Dan Fouts was perfect ... he could be a jerk and I think that helped him.”
  • [11:30] Fouts: “You better have a cocky, arrogant quarterback playing for you or you're in trouble...”
• Infamous Practice Field Confrontations:
  • [12:17] NFL Films captured heated arguments between Fouts and Winslow; mutual respect but high demands.
  • [12:48] Fouts: “That moment of conflict made us a better unit. And... he stood in there and took hit after hit after hit.”

4. Offensive Success—But No Super Bowl

• Unmatched passing success:
  • [14:37] Fouts led the league in passing for six straight seasons (‘no one else has done that’).
  • [15:35] They are not remembered on the same level as the 49ers because they never reached the Super Bowl.
• The “Epic in Miami”:
  • [16:16] The 1981 divisional round win in Miami is recalled as one of the most iconic and entertaining games in history.

5. Wild Times: Cocaine, Parties, and Urban Legends

• Team Culture & Drug Use:
  • [18:42] The “cocaine” in the title comes to the fore; after their Miami classic, rumors swirled about widespread team use, including possible play under the influence during the “Freezer Bowl” (AFC Championship).
  • [19:08] Owner Gene Klein: “claims that half the team, as much as half the team, were high on cocaine during the game.”
  • Chuck Muncie’s struggles became well known, going so far as to “smuggle cocaine... doing it before games and sometimes during halftime.”
  • [21:10] “A lot of players used. The players that didn't use, didn't rat them out. Everybody knew it.”
• The Gunshot Rumor:
  • [21:26] The wild urban legend that Dan Fouts was shot in the shoulder (his throwing arm!) and it was covered up by off-duty police eventually working for the Chargers.
  • Fouts dismisses it: "That one was a Muncie"; the story was likely a misunderstanding after a tough loss.

6. The Enduring Legacy and Echoes in Today’s Game

• Dan Fouts and Don Coryell Today:
  • [23:10] Fouts became a beloved commentator, now retired. Coryell posthumously entered the Pro Football Hall of Fame after years of advocacy.
  • [24:15] Fouts: “Don Coryell will get in the hall of fame. That means everything for the San Diego Chargers. That’s our legacy.”
• Coryell’s System Lives On:
  • [25:40] Modern offenses with heavy passing, pre-snap motion, and versatile tight ends are indebted to Coryell: “Don Coryell’s impact and fingerprints are all over offensive football right now in the league.”

---

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• [04:02] Zach Kiefer: “It was the day that changed Dan Fouts career. He was a nobody... they were a bad team.”
• [05:50] Dan Fouts: “Holy bleep. This is amazing.”
• [07:15] Zach Kiefer: “Just throw it down the field. All this talk, all this scheme, all the intricacies of football, just throw it down the field.”
• [11:30] Dan Fouts: “You better have a cocky, arrogant quarterback playing for you or you’re in trouble.”
• [12:28] Dan Fouts and Kellen Winslow (NFL Films Clip): “If you don’t like what I’m doing, you can find a new tight end!” / “I will!”
• [14:37] Zach Kiefer: “Nobody has led the league in passing six straight seasons. It became their identity and it’s how they started winning games.”
• [19:08] Zach Kiefer: “An owner of an NFL team... claims that half the team... were high on cocaine during the game.”
• [21:26] Zach Kiefer: “The story goes, him and Dan Fouts had come home with two women one night and been confronted by two other men, and Fouts had been shot in the shoulder... Fouts has denied it... ‘That was a Muncie’ and he laughed it off.”
• [25:07] Dan Fouts: “This whole thing is very special. You know, advocating for Don for about 30 years now and then finally having it happen.”
• [25:20] Zach Kiefer: “People will just say, I have to tell you, Dan, I loved watching those teams play. That’s why I fell in love with football in the first place.”

---

Important Timestamps

| Time (MM:SS) | Segment / Topic | |--------------|----------------------------------------------------| | 01:52 | Introduction of the episode’s story and focus | | 04:02 | Turning point: Coryell’s arrival, background | | 07:15 | Introduction of Air Coryell, deep passing concepts | | 09:00 | Kellen Winslow drafted; Move TE innovation | | 11:30 | Fouts’ leadership style and teammate dynamics | | 14:37 | Statistical dominance of Air Coryell offense | | 16:16 | The “Epic in Miami”—a legendary NFL game | | 18:42 | Cocaine rumors and owner’s accusations | | 21:26 | The Dan Fouts gunshot legend | | 23:10 | Fouts and Coryell’s post-Chargers legacy | | 25:40 | Air Coryell’s echoes in modern NFL offenses |

---

The Legacy—Why It Matters

• The episode frames the Chargers as not just a “fun” team but as a true crucible for innovation in football, responsible for much of what we see in the modern NFL:
  • Heavy passing, spread concepts, dynamic tight ends, pre-snap motion, and defensive adaptations.
• Their off-field infamy—cocaine use and wild urban legends—reflects the era’s “disco” chaos and reinforces their image as anti-establishment revolutionaries, both on and off the field.
• Don Coryell’s eventual induction into the Hall of Fame is painted as a rightly overdue recognition for his outsized yet initially under-acknowledged impact on the sport.

---

Conclusion

"Cocaine, Disco, and a Football Revolution" paints the San Diego Chargers of the late ‘70s and ‘80s as vibrant, unruly, and innovative—leaving a lasting legacy on modern football that lingers in today’s NFL, regardless of whether they reached the sport’s ultimate prize. Their story is one of transformation, controversy, and enduring cultural impact.

---

For a deeper dive, listen to the episode or read Zach Kiefer’s full story at The Athletic.

Transcript

[GrubHub Announcer]

You know that moment when you order food and suddenly everyone around you gets very interested in your dinner? Yeah, that's what GrubHub does. Gives you deals so good you'll have to guard them. Gold Days of grubhub plus is here. Four weeks of grubhub's best offers all month long in May only for grubhub members. And if you're not a member, you can sign up now for just 99 cents a month for six months. That's 90% off Grubhub membership. Auto renews and terms apply. Sign up now on the app [e-mail] plus gold don't miss it.

[Jason Concepcion]

Jason I'm Jason Concepcion and welcome to Six Trophies, a podcast hosted by myself and four time New York Times bestselling author Shay Serrano. Each week Shay and I are finding the best of the NBA storylines and then handing out six pop culture themed trophies for six basketball related activities. Listen to six Trophies with Jason Concepcion and Chase Serrano on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Tiffany Oshinsky]

When we think about innovative teams that have shaped modern NFL offenses, one of the first names that comes to mind is the San Francisco 49ers of the 1980s. Led by Head coach Bill Walsh and his west coast offense.

[Zach Kiefer]

Roger Craig coming from the right side

[Narrator/Play-by-play announcer]

crossing the middle all alone. Touchdown 49ers from 16 yards out. The 49ers offensive unit is hot.

[Zach Kiefer]

They seemingly can do anything they wish,

[Tiffany Oshinsky]

but there's another trailblazing team from the same era that that has gotten a lot less acclaim but has arguably had just as much of an impact on the sport.

[Narrator/Play-by-play announcer]

The unbelievable San Diego offense would set 10 National Football League records. Fouts takes a look way downfield, gets it away. Wes Chandler goes up and gets the ball and he's inside the 25 yard line.

[Tiffany Oshinsky]

Today Zach Kiefer of the Athletic tells the story of the high flying but somewhat forgotten San Diego Chargers of the late 1970s and 80s. The brash quarterback who made the offense fire and the team's visionary coach who finally got his due.

[Zach Kiefer]

Here comes Don Coryell and here comes this new high flying offense that really saved Dan Fouts career and really changed the way we view football and change the way football has been played since.

[Tiffany Oshinsky]

Plus the stories of drug fueled performances and a mysterious gunshot wound that still follow the team today. From Wondery, I'm Tiffany OSHINSKY. It's Wednesday, December 20th and this is the lead. So Zach, you recently wrote a wonderful story about the San Diego Chargers of the late 70s and early 80s, and how they in many ways provided a blueprint for the passing game we see today in the NFL. First of all, what made you want to write a story like this?

[Zach Kiefer]

Now, first off, it's nice to hear San Diego Chargers. I still call them that. I feel like the fans still want them to be in San Diego. To answer your question, I think, at least for me, so many of the great stories I've been a part of have started with a question that we don't know the answer to. And the question that my editor, Steven Cohen, posed to me months ago was, I think Dan Fouts was shot when he was the Chargers quarterback. Could you find out if he was? I knew nothing about the San Diego Chargers. Now, I had heard of Eric Coryell, but in passing. And really it started with a question. Was Dan Phanops shot? Because it sounded bizarre to think of an NFL quarterback at the peak of his powers in a Pro bowl season being shot in the throwing shoulder. But that's really where this started. Now, it's not where it ended, but there was a lot to get through once I dug in.

[Tiffany Oshinsky]

We'll definitely get to that part of the story for sure. But let's start by going back to the day that this whole Chargers experiment really began. September 25, 1978. Tell us about the significance of that day, both in San Diego history and in Chargers history.

[Zach Kiefer]

Yeah, to start, it was the day that changed Dan Fouts career. And he was open and honest about that. He's a Hall of Famer now, but to that point in his career, he was a nobody. He was a disappointment, and they were a bad team. In the night before September 25, they had played the Green Bay Packers. They had been drilled 11 turnovers on the day by the Chargers in the game. This is fourth quarter action. One of them, Dan Fouts, going downfield 28.

[Dan Fouts]

Willie Buchanan, comes up with it.

[Zach Kiefer]

They turned the ball over 11 times, and, yeah, I had to look that up a couple times. Eleven turnovers in an NFL game. They scored three points. And the coach got so mad watching the film that night that he decided to resign in his office at the old San Diego Stadium. And so the next morning, there's another thing that happens in San Diego. An airliner crashes over the city.

[Dan Fouts]

But in the time since the crash, the coroner's office has been able to identify nearly every person aboard Flight 182 and those killed.

[Zach Kiefer]

Danfouts is driving to the stadium for team meetings, and he's seeing the wreckage of this plane crash.

[Dan Fouts]

Curious, the sightseers drive through in cars or stroll the sidewalks at the site of the nation's worst air disaster, a disaster which, in a matter of seconds, meant death for 144 people.

[Zach Kiefer]

He called it one of the worst days in the history of our city. But then something amazing happened. About an hour and a half later, he gets to the team meeting and he realizes that Tommy Prothero, the coach, had resigned. And then he realizes who's taking over, because he knew who this man was.

[Dan Fouts]

There's nothing that I would change immediately. What I want to do is get to know the players and talk with the coaches and find out what we have been doing. And then maybe I might make a suggestion.

[Zach Kiefer]

He saw Don Coriel, walked to the front of the room, and Dan Fouts muttered under his breath, holy bleep. This is amazing. He knew things were going to change in San Diego really quickly.

[Tiffany Oshinsky]

Well, tell us a little more about this coach that Dan Fouts was so excited about. Where was Don Coriel in his coaching career at that time, and what was his coaching philosophy?

[Zach Kiefer]

Yeah, Coryell was a disciple of Sid Gilman, who's still known to this day as the father of the forward pass. His teams, his quarterbacks, his offenses, they did what nobody was doing at the time. They just threw it. Everybody loved the eye formation and the run game and old, boring, stodgy football. And Coryell essentially said, to hell with it. But when he was tapped to take over the Chargers, I think Fouts had a feeling that, well, this is going to open things up and we're going to have a completely different playbook.

[Dan Fouts]

Coach Coryell really doesn't know our system yet. He's had some input, but he is a. He is really some kind of guy. I've heard a lot about him and. And now I finally get to play for the man and. And I'm real excited about it.

[Zach Kiefer]

And he was right because things happened really quick as soon as Coryell got the nod.

[Tiffany Oshinsky]

Well, it didn't take long for this head coach QB duo to start doing things differently. And Zach, you wrote about one specific play that quickly became a sign of the times changing in San Diego and in the NFL. Tell us about that play.

[Zach Kiefer]

The play is called 989F Rub Sneak. Why is that important? Because it was basically two go routes on the outside. That's what those nines mean. Not a lot of go routes back then in the NFL. And I remember talking to Hank Bauer, who was a fullback on that team, about Don Coriel's first week of practice. He inserted this play and the coaches mainly dismissed it, thinking, there's no way we're going to call this this season. And probably not this week. But then come Sunday against the New England Patriots, he dialed it up in the first quarter. Big gain, 30 yard gain. And essentially from there, the air Coryell Chargers were born. That story in a nutsh was Don Coryell. All this talk, all this scheme, all the intricacies of football, just throw it down the field.

[Narrator/Play-by-play announcer]

First Fouts takes a look, dancing, looking to get away. Long throw down field. Charlie Joiner has the ball. He's not done yet.

[Zach Kiefer]

Bill Walsh was a huge fan of Don Coryell and he called him one of the most underappreciated coaches of all time. Now Walsh gets a ton of credit for his west coast scheme, which we still see to this day. Mike Shanahan, Kyle Shanahan. But what Walsh did was short quick passes horizontally to stretch the defense sideline to sideline. Coryell had no interest in sideline to sideline. He had pylon to pylon. He wanted to throw it up in the air. And there's this great quote from Dan Fowls when we were talking about the differences in his system was 80% of the time my first read was a deep shot. This was just something nobody was doing back then.

[Tiffany Oshinsky]

What other innovations did we see from Don Coriel and the Chargers in the years that followed? What other schemes and strategies did we see from them that felt innovative?

[Zach Kiefer]

Don Koriel saw the football field in a different way. He coached differently, he drafted differently, and he called plays differently. He drafted a tight end in the first round named Kellen Winslow who essentially changed the entire position. The way we see tight ends right now was because of Kellen Winslow and because of Don Coryell essentially using him as a receiver.

[Narrator/Play-by-play announcer]

Here is Dan Fouts throwing over the metal and he's got Kellen Winslow in open field. And Winslow is down the far side lines and finally knocked out of bounds.

[Zach Kiefer]

He was the first move tight end that wasn't relegated to just blocking on the line of scrimmage like a sixth offensive lineman. And Winslow became one of the most lethal weapons in the history of offensive football. Yeah, what a beautiful move.

[Commentator]

Look at the pump by Fouts. Waits for Winslow to cut underneath in the zone. Coverage puts it right where it has to be thrown. Winslow comes up with another big play.

[Zach Kiefer]

Defenses were forced to react and innovate in real time because football revolution was happening and some teams didn't have a way to cover Kellen Winslow, they couldn't cover him with a linebacker, they couldn't cover him with a safety. So they would throw an extra defensive back on usually a cornerback to cover him. Hence the nickel defense, five defensive backs and then even more they would add to sixth. That would be a dime defense. These are commonplace in the NFL. Teams run nickel defenses 70, 80% of the time on third down. Now, nobody was doing it back then, but they started to have to do it because Kellen Winslow was such a mismatch. Another one, since Dan Fouts didn't like using the shotgun. One way Coriel invented essentially to get him to tell what defense they were seeing was, was all these pre snap shifts and motions. If a player follows that receiver, then they're probably in man defense. If he doesn't, they're probably in zone. So as soon as the ball is snapped, Fouts knows what type of defense he's seen and he can just throw it. And he threw it fast and he threw it often and he threw it all over the yard. And really you're seeing this all over the NFL today. You see these pre snap shifts, you see the motions, you see tight ends who don't do a whole lot of blocking. So Don Coriollo's fingerprints are all over the passing game that we see every Sunday in the NFL.

[Tiffany Oshinsky]

And Zach, you also wrote about how this new offense worked in part because of the quarterback who was running it. How did Fouts playing style and personality fit into this whole equation?

[Zach Kiefer]

Dan Fouts was perfect for these Chargers teams in a lot of ways. He could be a jerk and I think that helped him.

[Dan Fouts]

You better have a cocky, arrogant quarterback playing for you or you're in trouble. Because those offensive linemen and those other guys in that huddle, if they see a milquetoast playing quarterback for them, they're not going to feel that confident themselves.

[Zach Kiefer]

He would wear a hat around that said mfer in charge. And you talk to his teammates and they say, absolutely, he got on my nerves, absolutely. He drove me crazy. But he was the boss. We knew it, he knew it and everybody else knew it. It's not often you see two of the best players in NFL history at their position, going at it on the field, at each other. And there's this famous clip from NFL Films between Kellen Winslow and Dan Fouts screaming at each other. Come on, run out of the brakes. Now leaning on. Run out of the brake.

[Narrator/Play-by-play announcer]

That's what I'm doing.

[Zach Kiefer]

You run out of the brakes. I'm running out the brake. Tippy Towing like a nobody can find

[Narrator/Play-by-play announcer]

another damn tight end.

[Zach Kiefer]

I will. And you're out of here.

[Narrator/Play-by-play announcer]

You're out of here.

[Zach Kiefer]

At one point, Kellen Winslow says, well, if you don't like what I'm doing, you can find a new tight end. And Fouts says, I will. And I asked Fouts about this, and he starts laughing and he says, zach, you're not going to believe this. That was during a preseason game. But that's how hard Fouts drove his teammates.

[Dan Fouts]

When you're out on that football field, there are no coaches around. You're 11 men on an island, basically facing another island of 11 angry men. So it's a unique situation. And that quarterback has to be in charge, aren't they?

[Zach Kiefer]

And I asked him about that as well, and he said, look, Coryell told me to get on those guys because they needed the offense to be run to precision. And that meant timing and spots and rhythm. And if a guy was a half step slow, Fouts was on him. And even the best ones, even hall of Famers like Kellen Winslow, would get chewed out. So when he would yell at me, sometimes I would yell back at him. But there was a mutual respect. There was never anything ill intended about it. That moment of conflict made us a better unit. And the reason it worked was because Fouts was one of the toughest quarterbacks to ever play football. He would get slammed in the pocket by a defensive player, and the defensive player would be yelling at him after the play, I'm coming back to get you. I'm going to get you again. If Fouts couldn't run, he couldn't scramble. He wasn't Michael Vick. He said, I'm going to be right here. So he didn't back down from anybody. And when he get on his players, his teammates, they respected him because he stood in there and took hit after hit after hit. I mean, this guy damaged his knee ligament. It was wobbling around like Jello. His teammates remember he had blood trickling down from his forehead to his chin. At one point, he pulled a groin, he separated his shoulder, and who knows what else. He was as tough as they came for that position. And that's why it worked, because sometimes he had to hang in that pocket for just an extra half second to get that deep ball down the field. And he was willing to do that, and he took punishment for doing that.

[Tiffany Oshinsky]

And Zach, can you lay out for us just how effective Dan Fouts in the San Diego offense were in the years after Don Coriel took over, relative to what we'd seen in the NFL up until that point.

[Zach Kiefer]

To put this in perspective, Joe Ferguson led the league in passing with about 2, 800 yards. The year before Don Coryell took over the Chargers. After he took over, Dan Fouts led the league with 4,000 passing yards. Dan Fouts was the second quarterback in history to throw for 4,000 yards. But think about this. The year Don Coriel took over, for the next six seasons, the Chargers led the league in passing. Nobody does that. Peyton Manning didn't do that. Tom Brady didn't do that. Nobody has led the league in passing six straight seasons. It became their identity and it's how they started winning games.

[Tiffany Oshinsky]

And Zach, as you point out in your story, despite the incredible offensive numbers this Chargers team put up, they never reached a Super Bowl. Which might be one of the reasons they're not really seen in the same vein as The San Francisco 49ers of that era. But Zach, what would you say were the crowning achievements of this Chargers team or their signature moments as a team?

[Zach Kiefer]

Yeah, I think their impact is widely overlooked. And it's probably because they didn't reach a Super bowl, because that seems to be the legacy marker for so many of these teams of this era. But they impacted how offensive football has been played for the last 30 to 40 years. They really did. They changed the way teams saw the game. They changed the way offensive coaches call the games. They had this catchy disco song that's impossible to get out of your head. Ask any football historian for a list of games that changed the sport. And not only that, we're just unbelievable. Unbelievably entertaining to watch. And the one that everyone has to mention is the 1981 Divisional round game in Miami.

[Narrator/Play-by-play announcer]

An excellent day for a top, top game as the Miami Dolphins get set to kick off to the high scoring San Diego Chargers.

[Zach Kiefer]

It was dubbed the Epic in Miami and it was an unbelievable game.

[Narrator/Play-by-play announcer]

Bounce, pump fakes, throws, Touchdown, Melon Winslow. And the Chargers take back the lead. 30, 24.

[Zach Kiefer]

Don Coryell called it the most exciting game in the history of pro football. And everyone at the time seemed to agree.

[Narrator/Play-by-play announcer]

Ed Luther, hold it is up. And the game is over. The San Diego Chargers win with almost 14 minutes of overtime played and the Chargers move on to the AFC championship game.

[Zach Kiefer]

I mean, if you go back 10 years, Bob Greasy led the Dolphins to a Super bowl. He attempted 11 passes all day. I mean, now Fouts was attempting 40 to 50 throws. Kellen Winzo caught 16 passes for 166 yards.

[Commentator]

Make it Dan Fouts, I think, played one of the most courageous ball games I've ever seen a quarterback play. His whole offense is to be lauded. They played against a great Miami defense,

[Zach Kiefer]

and that really put the Chargers on the map in terms of not just being a really good team that could compete in the playoffs, but being a team that a lot of people just wanted to watch because they were so much fun.

[Tiffany Oshinsky]

Okay, coming up, rumors about a gunshot wound and drug use and how the Air Coriel offense lives on today.

[Josh Hartnett]

What does it take to go racing in the fastest cars in the world? Oscar Piastri.

[Zach Kiefer]

Your head's trying to get ripped one way, your body's trying to go another.

[Josh Hartnett]

Let's stroll.

[Zach Kiefer]

It's very extreme in the sense of how close you're racing.

[Josh Hartnett]

Wheel to wheel, we've been given unprecedented access to two of the most famous names in Formula One, McLaren and Aston Martin.

[Zach Kiefer]

I'm London Arts. They build a beautiful bit of machinery that I get to then got enough fun in.

[Josh Hartnett]

They open the doors to their factories as the 2024 season reached its peak. I'm Josh Hartnett. This is F1. Back at base. Listen, wherever you get your podcasts.

[Tiffany Oshinsky]

So, Zach, we just talked about the Chargers epic divisional round win over the dolphins in 1981. That brings us to the highly anticipated cocaine part of our story. Can you explain what happened to the Chargers in their very next game? And the stories that began to circulate

[Zach Kiefer]

about the team they lost the following week, 27 7, in Cincinnati in a game called the Freezer bowl because it was as much as 59 degrees below zero. Just absolutely frigid.

[Commentator]

But it was the Bengals who wanted it the most, who were able to take advantage of some miscues by the San Diego Chargers, some costly interceptions by Dan Phelps. It was a Bengal day, and the

[Zach Kiefer]

owner was furious with some of his players because he believed they had taken cocaine before the game. Let's just imagine for a minute if this happened today. An owner of an NFL team after his team loses an AFC championship game claims that half the team, as much as half the team, were high on cocaine during the game. Now, the rumor, according to Gene Klein, the former Chargers owner, something he said an FBI agent told him years later, was that one of his players bought cocaine while they were in Miami for that divisional round game and smuggled it back to San Diego on the team charter after that historic victory. And the more you dig into it, one of the key pieces to that team, one of the best players on that team, Chuck Muncie, an absolutely gifted running back would admit years later and go to prison for smuggling cocaine. He was doing it before games and sometimes during halftime. So this was a different era, and this was not relegated just to the NFL. The NBA had a problem as well. But Gene Klein, who owned the San Diego Chargers at the time, spent a decade trying to get drug testing reforms implemented into the NFL unsuccessfully. And it drove him crazy. And he admitted years later it was one of the reasons he sold the team. Cocaine use was widespread all across the NFL, and the Chargers were among the most vicious offenders. And you ask the players, you ask Dan Fouts, and he kind of shrugs, and he offers a knowing laugh and says, I'll just say this. Everybody got ready for the game in a different way. You ask Hank Bauer, and he says, well, I can neither confirm nor deny that Chuck Muncie ever used any of my clean urine. The bottom line is this. A lot of players used. The players that didn't use, didn't rat them out. Everybody knew it. And it was really hard to police because players back then were tested once before the season and then never again. So back then, it was fairly common. It was just kind of something a lot of people turn their nose at.

[Tiffany Oshinsky]

Okay. And shifting now from cocaine to guns and to the question that you were initially trying to answer when you set out to write the story. Zach, tell us what you learned about this rumor that Dan Fouts had at one point been shot during an NFL season.

[Zach Kiefer]

So after Chuck Muncie was out of football, and really, his drug use was the reason that he didn't last any longer because he had hall of Fame talent, he was working with investigators on an investigation regarding the San Diego Police Department. And there's this urban legend around the town that had been percolating for years. The story goes, him and Dan Fouts had come home with two women one night and been confronted by two other men, and Fouts had been shot in the shoulder. Now, Chuck Muncie told this to investigators. Now, Fouts has denied it, the Chargers denied it. But where it gets really spicy is they called two off duty San Diego Police Department detectives who allegedly covered it up, Right? And those detectives would later go work for the Chargers. So you got to picture Dan Fouts in the middle of his prime, in the middle of a Pro bowl season, being shot in his throwing shoulder. So I asked Dan Fouts about this, and he said that one was a Muncie, and he laughed it off. He's been asked about this for years and years and decades. He says it Started here in the training room after a loss to the Patriots. When he's sitting there, Dan Fouts says, I took a bullet for the team today. He was in a lot of pain. He took some hits. He thinks Chuck Muncie misunderstood him. I think a running back knows when a quarterback got hit in the game and got hit by a bullet.

[Tiffany Oshinsky]

All right, well, putting that urban legend aside for now and bringing the story back to the present, Zach, tell us a little about life after the Chargers for both Dan Fouts and Don Coriel and their football legacies today.

[Zach Kiefer]

Yeah, a lot of people, especially my age, know Dan Fouts. First as a CBS commentator. A good sharp route by Lincoln as he lets the interference clear out.

[Dan Fouts]

Hearns taking the safety out of the

[Zach Kiefer]

way and then coming underneath, making the catch, and immediately getting up field to pick up the first down. He wasn't renewed as an announcer a couple years ago in 2020, so he's just retired. He lives in Oregon in the backcountry, in this log cabin, essentially, that's really away from a lot of other houses. He loves the solitude up there. But for those that were around in the 70s and 80s and remember watching this team, it absolutely holds a special place in their heart. And I asked Dan Fouts, what is the legacy? Because it took a long time. It took 10 years for Don Coriel to finally get in the hall of Fame, probably because he never reached that Super Bowl. But to those who were there and to those who played with him and to those who coached with them, that man absolutely changed football. He changed the way we watch football right now. He changed the way coaches coach it, and he changed the way offenses are run.

[Dan Fouts]

You know, there were times when I would start a game and my first one would be in the first row of the stands. The second one would be incomplete at the dirt of somebody else. And I said, dude, I don't know, Coach, I can't hit the. I can't hit the barn today.

[Zach Kiefer]

Well, hell, Danny, you got 40 more throws to go. Don Coryell died in 2010, and it became the personal mission of the Chargers organization, of the coaches he worked with, of the players he coached to get him into the hall of Fame. It took him seven tries, and he finally got in. I asked Fouts, you know, what is the legacy? And he said two things. He said, one, Don Cory will get in the hall of Fame. That means everything for the San Diego Chargers. That's our legacy.

[Dan Fouts]

It was very special. This whole thing is very special. You know, advocating for don for about 30 years now and then finally having it happen.

[Zach Kiefer]

But secondly, he said he'll get stopped at airports and he'll get stopped at stadiums and he'll get stopped at events from people who will just say, I have to tell you this, Dan, I loved watching those teams play. That's why I fell in love with football in the first place. And he says, more than anything, that's our legacy. That's why we're remembered.

[Tiffany Oshinsky]

Finally, Zach, as we try to connect the dots from the late 70s, early 80s Chargers to the NFL in 2023, where do you see the echoes of the Air Coryell offense today?

[Zach Kiefer]

You've seen it over the generations. You saw it with Peyton Manning in Indianapolis, won four of his five MVPs in a Super Bowl. You see it right now with Kyle Shanahan and what he's doing in San Francisco. You see it in Miami with Mike McDaniel and the Dolphins and their high flying offense. Don Coryell's impact and fingerprints are all over offensive football right now in the league. And he didn't get the recognition for it in his time. But those who know football know the impact he had on the league. And it was such a fun story to dig into because it was twofold. There was a lot going on behind the scenes. Rumors of a gunshot, rumors of drug use. But there was also this innovative coach who didn't follow the conventions of the day and essentially created his own style. And they won with flair and they won with style and those teams put on a show.

[Tiffany Oshinsky]

Well, thank you so much, Zach, for sharing this story.

[Zach Kiefer]

Thanks for having me. As always.

[Tiffany Oshinsky]

You can find a link to Zach Kiefer's full story about the San Diego Chargers in our show notes and follow his coverage of the NFL at the athletic.com and listen to his podcast, Kiefer and the Beats as part of the Athletic Football show every Tuesday. All right, that's it for today. This episode was produced by Matt's Straub and edited by Anders Kelto. Audio editing by Daniel Gonzalez. Sound design and mixing by Joe Richardson. Fact checking by Ian Hurley. The rest of our team includes Erin May, Matt Beagle and Adrian Tapia. Our executive producer is Anders Kelto. The lead is executive produced by Dave Easton Marshall, Louie and Erin o'. Flaherty. For Wondery from Wondery, I'm Tiffany Oshinsky. We'll talk to you on Friday.