Burt Grossman’s walking outside during a recent Southern California heat wave, trying to paint a picture over the phone about how he and the San Diego Chargers made NFL history in 1992.
There’s one story Grossman, 59, tells more vividly than the rest.
Grossman, a defensive end and one of the franchise's all-time sack leaders, was cutting cards in the back of the team plane. It was after a preseason opener in which Chargers starting quarterback John Friesz suffered a season-ending knee injury.
First-year San Diego coach Bobby Ross, a former U.S. Army first lieutenant who’d just won a share of the national championship as Georgia Tech’s coach, was headed for Grossman.
“I was telling jokes or some (expletive), and he's coming down the aisle,” Grossman
said. “Nobody tells me and I'm laughing, telling jokes. Then everybody stops laughing. I can't see (Ross). He comes and he literally rips the (expletive) out of me.
“That’s the kind of (expletive) we would do because we were so used to losing. But I never did it again.”
Ross was all business. His Chargers kept losing but not long. They remain the only team in league history to start the regular season 0-4 and still make the playoffs.
Now a record-tying five NFL teams sit 0-4. Two of them — the Tennessee Titans (0-4) and Houston Texans (0-4) — play each other in Nashville on Oct. 10 (noon, CBS) in an AFC South rivalry clash.
It bears wondering if anything the Chargers did in 1992 is applicable to the Titans.
“I just feel like if we can just get one (win), it'll snowball and who knows what will happen,” Titans coach Robert Saleh said before practice on Oct. 7. “It's never over until that little (mark for elimination) shows up on the standings.”
Burt ‘Big Mouth’ Grossman thinks Chargers’ run will never be replicated
Grossman was featured on the October 15, 1990, cover of “Sports Illustrated” under the caption “Big Mouth.” It was never a nickname before, but it “kind of stuck” after that.
He doesn’t hold back about the Chargers’ current disappointing season — they’re 0-4 too — and hosts a weekly sports TV show in San Deigo in addition to being president of the city’s Indoor Football League team.
Grossman doesn’t think a modern team will replicate San Diego’s Cinderella story in part because there aren’t enough motivating factors to dig out of an 0-4 hole.
In 1992, only 15% of NFL players’ compensation — base salary and bonuses — was guaranteed. Grossman was the 1989 No. 8 overall draft pick and made $250,000 a year, which adjusted for today would be just over $496 million. The current average NFL salary is roughly $2.5 million.
Nineties-era NFL players went all-out to save money through incentive bonuses tied to goals like passing marks or sacks.
“So, if I wanted it to make an extra $75,000, I had to hit all my incentives. In order to do that, I couldn't quit,” Grossman said. “Now guys are making $10 million, $20 million guaranteed. You don't have that kind of incentive, I don't think, anymore. If I'm making $5-10 million guaranteed, I don’t think I’d really care about my incentives. I’d care about preserving myself so I can go another year and make another $15 million.”
Leadership, QB play turned 1992 Chargers around
Quarterback Stan Humphries, who would lead the Chargers to a 1994 Super Bowl appearance, was acquired in a trade from Washington before the regular season due to Friesz’s injury.
Entering his third NFL season, Humphries was slightly more experienced than Titans second-year QB Cam Ward and was poised to become one of the league’s top passers that year.
“We just had terrible quarterbacks. We always had a great defense but we couldn’t score, so it didn’t matter,” Grossman said. “We didn't have a Cam Ward and that’s the whole difference. I’m not saying (Ward’s) not going to be a great player, but he’s young and he’s not going to turn it around in a week. If we didn't trade for Stan Humphries, we wouldn't be having this conversation.”
There was Ross, too, whose authoritarian style struck a nerve. Ross said Grossman eventually “had enough of me” and traded him to the Philadelphia Eagles after the 1993 season.
“They called him ‘Boss Ross,’” said John Carney, the Chargers kicker in 1992, now 62 and training kickers in the San Diego area. “He was like concrete. He wasn’t going to change his style of coaching.”
Budding third-year linebacker Junior Seau, also emerged as a leader. After starting 0-4, the Chargers won 11 of their next 12. In the one loss, Kansas City clinched its win with a first down because Seau blitzed without telling anyone, leaving his zone wide-open.
“The next day in film, (Seau) stands up, he's crying and apologizing to players for that one game, that one mistake," Grossman said. "I don't think anybody today would do that, either.
What does any of this mean for the Tennessee Titans?
Maybe nothing.
No one knows if Ward has a Humphries-like season in him.
Humphries had a year’s worth of experience on Ward with moderate success, going 3-2 as a Washington starter the previous season. Ward, a former No. 1 overall pick, might be working through scar tissue sitting 3-18 as an NFL starter.
Ross’ leadership as coach doesn’t provide many lessons either. His style wouldn’t translate to 2026. San Diego had a veteran roster anyway, and Saleh’s Titans are among the youngest in the league. But Ross (77-68 as NFL coach) ultimately proved himself, and Saleh's still getting there (20-40).
Tennessee is establishing more leaders beyond seventh-year defensive tackle Jeffery Simmons. Ward said he’s mixing up his style to fit different players, and in some cases that includes being fiery.
“I’m not really a rah-rah guy,” Ward said. “But when stuff needs to be getting said, I say it.”
Ward also encouraged right tackle JC Latham to break down the pregame huddle last week in Baltimore.
Tennessee is no more down in the dumps now than San Diego was then. The Chargers posted four consecutive losing seasons leading up to 1992 and hadn’t been to the playoffs since 1981.
Much is the same, much is different.
The dream is the same.
The Chargers’ 1992 rebound helped set up their 1994 Super Bowl appearance.
“I think anything's achievable,” Saleh said when asked if San Diego’s achievement is possible today. “You get on a run and you start getting — momentum and confidence is such a big deal and a very, very underrated thing in the NFL. It's why I look at our team and I'm like, 'God, we've had three straight, really tight football games.' And you could argue we could be 2-2, or 0-4 like we are. But I think the guys are in a good spot.”
Tyler Palmateer covers the Tennessee Titans for The Tennessean. Have a story idea for Tyler? Reach him at tpalmateer@tennessean.com and on the X platform, @tpalmateer83.
This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: What can Titans learn from historic San Diego team that rallied from 0-4 start?
