I know professional sports has long passed by the time when fans root, rooted for the home team no matter what.

I know that pressure from fans starving for championships raises extremely high bars for coaches to clear.

But how out of whack have things become when a guy gets fired after posting the best record in the league?

On Monday, San Diego Chargers president Dean Spanos fired head coach Marty Schottenheimer despite the fact that “Martyball” had guided the Chargers to a NFL-best 14-2 record last season.

Yes, the Chargers saw their season crash in disappointment when they lost at home to the New England Patriots in the AFC Divisional Playoffs.

And yes, Schottenheimer’s playoff record is now 5-13 with six straight losses.

But 14-2 is still 14-2 – isn’t it?

Obviously not, at least not when a coach can’t get along with the general manager who has more clout with the owner than he does.

“When I decided to move ahead with Marty Schottenheimer in mid-January, I did so with the expectation that the core of his fine coaching staff would remain intact,” Spanos said in a statement explaining his decision.

“Unfortunately, that did not prove to be the case, and the process of dealing with these coaching changes convinced me that we simply could not move forward with such dysfunction between our head coach and general manager (A.J. Smith).”

The second part of that statement is closer to the truth.

Schottenheimer was the guy on the wrong corner of a struggle for power with Smith, who inherited Schottenheimer as coach when he replaced the late John Butler.

Smith and Schottenheimer had clashed over control issues from the start.

The irony of Spanos citing the assistant-coach issue is that offensive coordinator Cam Cameron was hired as head coach of the Miami Dolphins and defensive coordinator Wade Phillips took over the Dallas Cowboys.

And since Spanos refused to give Schottenheimer a long-term extension, how can he blame Schottenheimer for other assistants leaving for places where the head coach is on more solid ground?

Spanos had offered Schottenheimer a one-year extension to his deal that expired after the 2007 season.

After 21 years of dealing with NFL owners as a head coach, Schottenheimer knows the game well enough to have seen the writing on the wall. He declined the extension, figuring it was better for his future than to operate in 2007 as a lame duck.

Certainly, Schottenheimer isn’t the first coach to be fired after a season that by most expectations had to be considered a success.

And on some rare occasions, it has proved to be the right call.

Tampa Bay fired Tony Dungy after a string of playoff disappointments and his successor, Jon Gruden, immediately won the Super Bowl.

The Detroit Pistons fired Rick Carlisle after he took the team to the 2003 Eastern Conference finals, and Larry Brown walked in and immediately won his first NBA championship.

Brown’s contract was bought out the next season after losing Game 7 of the Finals, but LB’s circumstances are always a bit more unusual then everyone else’s.