The disappointment of losing to the Kansas City Chiefs in the Jan. 28 American Football Conference Championship Game didn’t linger for Joe Hortiz, then the Baltimore Ravens’ director of player personnel.
The Los Angeles Chargers offered Mr. Hortiz their general manager job the following day, then announced his hiring the day after that. A 10-day whirlwind for Mr. Ortiz continued Feb. 6 with an introductory news conference at the club’s practice facility in Costa Mesa.
The media session came five days after new Chargers Coach Jim Harbaugh went through the same drill. Together, Mr. Hortiz and Mr. Harbaugh are being entrusted by club owner Dean Spanos and his family to bring a winning pedigree to a franchise that has most often lacked exactly that.
Hiring the two men marked the culmination of a “parallel path” where the Chargers sought to fill each position independently, John Spanos, the team’s president of football operations, said before ceding the podium to the new general manager.
It just so happened that Mr. Harbaugh, fresh off coaching the University of Michigan to a national college football championship, landed his new gig first, less than a week before Mr. Hortiz.
“Something that was really important to us was the fit between the head coach and the general manager,” Mr. John Spanos said. “We did not want to have an arranged marriage in any way. It was important to us, whatever domino did fall first, that that person, we would want their insights on the other spot as well. What kind of worked out perfectly was both Coach Harbaugh and Joe said nothing but super-positive things about each other. So, we felt really good about that fit.”
Mr. Hortiz, 48, will oversee all player personnel and scouting matters, including free agency and the draft, the team said in a statement announcing his appointment.
Having worked in Baltimore with Ravens Coach John Harbaugh, Mr. Jim Harbaugh’s older brother, and with a personal relationship that goes back to the new coach’s brief stint as Baltimore’s quarterback in 1998, Mr. Hortiz is more than comfortable with the situation.
“He’s always been at the top of my list as a guy I wanted to work with, and we’ve talked about that before,” Mr. Hortiz said. “There’s a time for the GM to lead, and certainly when we kick it off, that’s when the head coach leads, and I’m going to do everything I can to support him.”
With the Chargers coming off a drastically disappointing 5–12 season that resulted in the firings of former General Manager Tom Telesco and former Coach Brandon Staley, there is no shortage of work to be done. Despite salary-cap challenges that will only make the task more difficult, Mr. Hortiz is conceding nothing.
“Our goal is to build a winner every year,” he said. “We want to compete to win a championship every year. That’s going to be starting now. That’s not going to be, ‘Let’s gut it and start over.’ We’re not mailing in a season. No way. We’re going to try to win this year, but you make the right decisions and the best decisions that [provide] flexibility this year and going forward.”
After five years as director of player personnel and 26 years total in Baltimore working under former General Manager Ozzie Newsome and the current head man Eric DeCosta, Mr. Hortiz has his first shot at leading a franchise.
“I feel like Joe was kind of born to do this job,” Mr. John Spanos said. “He’s really high-passion for football, has impressive knowledge of the game. He’s been evaluating players for a really long time, and throughout the process shared with us his vision and his philosophy on team building. A lot of it is rooted in the draft, but I think what also presented itself was Joe has a progressive view on team building in regard to factoring in salary-cap ramifications, the use of analytics. Taking all those things into account, we felt that Joe was the perfect person for this job.”
Despite the Chargers’ many disappointments over the years, there is great potential for success thanks to the presence of the Spanos family, Mr. Jim Harbaugh, and a standout quarterback in Justin Herbert, according to Mr. Hortiz.
“Ask any scout what are the three things you want,” he said. “Great ownership? Check. A great head coach? Check. A great quarterback? Check. If you have those three things, you have a chance. We have a chance to be really good. This is a dream job.”
Just as Mr. Jim Harbaugh said last week, Mr. Hortiz identified filling out the team’s coaching staff as the immediate priority. Later in the day, in fact, the Chargers named the new coach’s former defensive coordinator at Michigan, Jesse Minter, to the same position. Changes in the team’s scouting staff are also likely, Mr. Hortiz said.
Evaluation of the roster and what the Chargers will be able to do given that they are projected to be nearly $35 million over the salary cap will also be critical. So too will be preparation for the April 25–27 NFL draft, where the Chargers hold the fifth pick in the first round.
“We’re going to find out who are the Chargers in this draft – the people that fit our mentality and what we want,” Mr. Hortiz said. “We want ’em all to be big, fast, tough, smart. Tough is key. You have to have that mentality. Only 50 percent of the player is the talent and the skillset. The other 50 percent is the person. And we’re going to dive deep into that. We want players that are committed to team.”
