Turner Steps Out of Awkward Pre-Firing Tap Dance The end of an N.F.L. season is always awkward for coaches who know they'll be fired shortly after the final whistle. Most choose to deal with it by not dealing with it, deflecting all questions and refusing to acknowledge the pink-slip-clad elephant in the room. Norv Turner, however, has chosen to handle his doomed status more honestly. He doesn't see the need to pretend the inevitable won't happen. The Chargers, considered a playoff contender pre-season, are 5-9 and have lost handfuls of games in inexplicable fashion. He told CBS's Jim Nantz before last week's game against the Steelers, " We all know what the final outcome will be." This followed the usual tap dance of the local newspaper -- in this case U-T San Diego -- reporting on Dec. 6 that team owner Dean Spanos had decided to fire both Turner as coach and A.J. Smith as general manager. Next came the usual denials by Spanos, not that they wouldn't be fired but that he hadn't yet made the decision. After the Chargers then added an inexplicable victory to their slate against the Steelers, the awkwardness grew when Spanos came into the locker room and handed a game ball to Turner. The coach did not, by all reports, check to see if his walking papers were attached. Turner hasn't had much appetite for the tap dancing. He was even discussing his potential future employment with reporters on a conference call before this Sunday's game against the Jets. He said he would rather take a job as an offensive coordinator than take a year off from coaching. But as sanguine as Turner has been about his impending firing, the end of his season is nowhere near as weird as Jim Fassel's exit from the Giants was in 2003. With two games to go in a 4-10 season, in which the Giants had cliff-dived from Super Bowl contender to injury-riddled mess, Fassel walked in to the office of team president John Mara and said he knew he would be fired, so he wanted to announce it now. He would coach the final two games, he said, but let's go ahead and pre-fire me. "It was just the right thing to do," Fassel said at the time. It wears on everybody. Little did Fassel know, he hasn't gotten much of a sniff from anyone with a head coaching opening since. Turner, who had two previous head coaching stints end poorly as well, doesn't know if that fate awaits him too. But he's ready to go ahead and face it anyway.