Charlie Joiner calls it quits after 44 NFL seasons as coach, player

Hall of Fame receiver coach Charlie Joiner has been coaching the Chargers’ receivers since 2008.  But he won’t be part of the new coaching staff.

The Chargers have announced that Joiner has retired as 44 total NFL seasons.

He played from 1969 through 1986, with the Oilers, Bengals, and Chargers.  He immediately went into coaching, working with the Chargers from 1987 through 1991, the Bills from 1992 through 2000, the Chiefs from 2001 through 2007, and the Chargers again for the last five years.

Through it all, Joiner made it to only two Super Bowls, with no victories in the championship game.

“It’s time for retirement,” Joiner said. “This is definitely a young man’s game, and it’s time for new blood, new insight and new ways of doing things. I think the players need to be introduced to those new things. It’s time in my life that, at 65, I should be doing something else.”

Joiner was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1996.

If You Can Make It in Delaware, You'll Make It Anywhere

But let Super Bowl XLVII serve as a lesson: A world-champion starting quarterback really can come from anywhere.

San Francisco's Colin Kaepernick and Baltimore's Joe Flacco both went to nontraditional football schools that are light years away from the microscope of the BCS. Kaepernick went to Nevada, where he led the Wolf Pack to a win against then-unbeaten Boise State in 2010. Flacco, meanwhile, came from Delaware, transferring to the Football Championship Subdivision from Pittsburgh. The matchup represents a major departure from last year's Tom Brady-Eli Manning battle, which pitted quarterbacks from the Big Ten and Southeastern Conference.

Nevada has produced a total of 52 NFL players. Delaware has produced 23, for a total of 75. There has never been a Super Bowl where the two starting quarterbacks came from colleges that had fewer NFL alumni.

The Flacco-Kaepernick battle most resembles Super Bowl XXXIV, when the Rams' Kurt Warner (Northern Iowa) beat the Titans' Steve McNair (Alcorn State). Those two schools combined for 81 NFL alumni. That game marked the only time two quarterbacks from non-FBS schools opposed each other in a Super Bowl.