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Lions can look to Bobby Ross' Chargers for playoff hope

Had Bobby Ross known what was he was in for at the start of his first NFL season, he might have stayed in college.

Ross, the one-time Detroit Lions coach, left Georgia Tech a year after sharing a national championship to take over a downtrodden San Diego Chargers team in 1992.

His starting quarterback, John Friesz, held out for the first 12 days of training camp, then suffered a season-ending knee injury in his first exhibition game.

He opened the regular season with four straight losses by an average of 16.5 points.

And in the days before Twitter and with sports talk radio in its relative infancy, there were enough people saying he wasn't qualified to be an NFL coach to create a small California earthquake.