All Philip Rivers really wanted was a chance to play one more NFL season. So when the Indianapolis Colts gave him a shot, the eight-time Pro Bowler took it.
Rivers officially ended his 16-year tenure with the Chargers on Saturday by signing the $25 million deal he agreed to last week.
“I still love to play, I know I can play at a high level,” the 38-year-old quarterback said on a conference call, acknowledging he was ready to walk away from football if he received no offers.
Rivers believes he has plenty to offer even after one of his worst seasons.
He threw 23 touchdown passes, his lowest total since 2007, and 20 interceptions, matching the second-highest total of his career. While some blamed the troubles on a poor offensive line or Rivers trying to do too much to rally the Chargers late in games, others contended his skills were rapidly deteriorating.
Now, with a fresh start, a strong running game and one of the league’s top offensive lines, Rivers insists he will prove the critics wrong this season.
“I feel great and if I feel like I do next year then I’ll be excited to keep on going, depending on how the team feels about it,” Rivers said. “I do want to coach my oldest son (in high school). I have two sons, they’re 12 and eight, so we’ve got a little time. I don’t think you’ll see me in the Tom Brady range, but I feel good and I feel like I can help a team win a championship.”
Rivers takes the reins of an Indianapolis team that stumbled to a 7-9 record last season. But first he must beat out incumbent starter Jacoby Brissett, who struggled during the second half last season after injuring his left knee.
Tag: Philip Rivers
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Rivers Out To Prove Critics Wrong
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Bolts QB Situation Remains The Same As Tom Brady Stiff-Arms Chargers
(Tom Krasovic UT Sports -On the NFL)
If you thought Tom Brady would make a large bet on the stewardship of Dean Spanos, if you believed the greatest quarterback of his time was soon to partner with a club many NFL players regard as cheap and cautious — and just OK at football — well, we all get fanciful notions.
Brady to the Bolts is not happening, and never was happening.
Brady, according to multiple reports, was expected to end the first free agency of his 20-year career this week by signing with the Tampa Bay Bucs. The old quarterback, 42, is headed to God’s Waiting Room.So where does Brady’s stiff-arming leave the Chargers as they head toward their fourth NFL season since Spanos and siblings moved them north?
It leaves them with Tyrod Taylor as their top quarterback, for now, and the Spanos clan doing a slow walk toward the new Kroenke Dome, the stadium that drew them to Los Angeles.
It sends the Chargers toward the new digs looking like an 8-8 team, perhaps 9-7 or 10-6 if they catch enough breaks. And, barring an improbable trade for Cam Newton, it nudges them closer to taking a quarterback high in the draft for the first time since 2004, when they selected Eli Manning and traded him for Philip Rivers.
One plausible scenario on Draft Night: With the sixth pick or a trade thereof, the Chargers take Justin Herbert of Dan Fouts U, if they decide that, for medical reasons, he’s less risky than Tua Tagovailoa, the best lefty from Alabama since Kenny Stabler.
Three years into the Spanoses’ L.A. venture, here’s one big-picture observation: You can take the football team out of San Diego, but you can’t take the Spanoses out of the football team.The Chargers remain still a crayon-within-the-lines outfit. It could be worse. Tom Telesco’s scouts are good. They’ve found bargains in the amateur markets, and have a feel for NFL talent. Already this month they’ve agreed to add two good blockers in guard Trai Turner and right tackle Bryan Bulaga.
But it doesn’t seem the Chargers are living up to claims that life in the country’s second-largest media market would attract football stars and fatten their margins for error. For example: The notion Brady would gravitate to L.A., as the NBA’s LeBron James had in late-career free agency, overlooked the glaring fact the Chargers are nothing like the Lakers.
Amid the new surroundings, the Spanos DNA hasn’t changed noticeably. The Bolts still don’t do big splashes. They don’t import players and coaches whose personality may make the top bosses uncomfortable. If there’s something cutting-edge about them, it’s hard to even muster a guess as to what it is.
We may not hear Brady say this, but it was wise-cracking, assertive head coach Bruce Arians who gave the Bucs a football edge in the Brady recruitment, because he’s one of the NFL’s better offensive coaches.Not long after Spanos chose not to interview him, instead falling hard for Mike McCoy, Arians joined the Cardinals and led them to a 34-14 record between 2013-15 before falling off.
While Anthony Lynn has done some good work since Telesco and John Spanos hired him to replace McCoy, he hasn’t ended the franchise’s AFC West-title drought, now at 10 years. And partly because he inherited Rivers, it’s not fully clear what he stands for on offense, where he earned his bones as an NFL player and an assistant coach.
Lynn’s offensive coordinator, Shane Steichen, a Norv Turner protege Lynn inherited — and promoted during the 2019 season after he fired Ken Whisenhunt — is a promising coach but also a mystery.Why would Brady go from one of the NFL’s top coordinators, Josh McDaniels, to taking a gamble on Lynn-Steichen?
Arians had this going for him: Directing quarterback Carson Palmer late in his career, he fell one victory short of a Super Bowl.
Also, Brady had to conclude the AFC West is more challenging than the NFC South for one simple reason: Andy Reid and Patrick Mahomes reside in the AFC West. Reid has rewarded Chiefs owner Clark Hunt for paying him top dollar by leading the Chiefs to four straight West titles, the latest of which led to a Super Bowl victory, three years after the daring draft night trade to land Mahomes. Bear in mind, it’s divisional dominance that underlies Brady’s Hall of Fame career, if you go deeper. Finishing first in the four-team race brought him windfalls in the Super Bowl tournament, notably first-round byes and home-field advantage.Brady’s exit from the AFC came about 20 years too late, as far as the Chargers and Rivers were concerned.
Rivers never enjoyed a victory against Brady, who went 8-0 in those matchups. (That history includes the infamous Marlon McCree fumble-game, in which Brady threw three interceptions.) Here’s a question that will bake your noodle: Do the Chargers get to a Super Bowl — and perhaps build enough support for a new stadium in San Diego — if Brady hadn’t become an all-time great in the same conference?Rivers, 38, may have one more Super Bowl shot, with the Colts, whose division won’t include Mahomes or Brady.
The Chargers, who went from Drew Brees to Rivers the last time they were in this position, now will go to a new quarterback: Mr. TBD.
tom.krasovic@sduniontribune.com -
Philip Rivers Leads L.A. Chargers To Nail-Biting Win Over Tennessee Titans
Phillip Rivers continues to play at a high level as the veteran quarterback led the explosive Chargers offense to a nailbiting 20-19 victory and left the Tennessee Titans in tatters as they gambled on a game-winning two-point conversion, but came up short on their debut in London.
Rivers had a perfect afternoon rifling two long touchdowns to Tyrell Williams and Mike Williams, racking up 297 yards for LA who were missing their star running back Melvin Gordon with a hamstring injury.
“This was a gritty team win,” Rivers said. “That was as excited as I’ve seen the locker room in a while. It wasn’t our best game but we found a way and were efficient.
“We believed we had a good chance to get a big chunk on that first play and they played the defense we were hoping for and Tyrell did a great job getting into the endzone.”
Los Angeles Chargers appeared to have taken a slice of home with them as 84,301 sun-drenched fans were sent into raptures by Tyrell Williams’s early touchdown. Playing to such a full house was an alien experience for the Chargers who struggle for support at the StubHub Center after moving from San Diego last season. Rivers described the atmosphere as “unbelievable”. He continued: “I remember it being good 10 years ago but not this good. It was awesome. They got to see a great game so hopefully they enjoyed it just as much as us.”
The Titans opened their scoring with a 28-yard field goal from Ryan Succop, but it would be the only time they held the lead. The Chargers took over and never looked back. After one play and nine seconds they had six points. Rivers dropped back and hit Tyrell Williams while Tennessee’s Logan Ryan floundered. The wide receiver sprinted by the confused cornerback and into the endzone for a 75-yard touchdown. Mike Badgley kicked the extra point and duly added another three from 29 yards after a Tennessee punt to give them a 10-3 advantage.
Tyrell Williams said of his touchdown: “We knew it was going to be the opening call, and as soon as the ball was snapped I felt the defense shift to where we knew we wanted them and after that I just had to run in. It felt good.” Tennessee was comfortable moving the ball on the ground and through the air, but again had to settle for three points through Succop from 33 yards.
Then, after forcing the Chargers to punt and as time ticked away in the first half, the Titans had a third touchdown opportunity. Just 10 yards away from taking the lead, Mariota was picked off by Chargers linebacker Denzel Perryman and the half closed 10-6.
The Bolts started the second-half exactly how they started the first. On just the third play Rivers sailed a perfect rainbow throw over the heads of the Titan’s defenders and into Mike Williams’s arms. Left all alone in the backfield, he jogged into the endzone for the 55-yard touchdown which Badgley converted stretching the lead to 17-6.
Tennessee responded by finally finding the endzone, after failing in their past two games, through Derrick Henry and Succop kicked the extra point. They were back in touching distance at 17-13.
Badgley was called into action again from 28 yards for LA after Tennessee’s defense refused to give up another touchdown to Rivers. The kicker easily made the chip shot to extend the lead to 20-13. His opposite number Succop failing to match him from 51 yards on the Titans next possession.
Mariota then threw his only touchdown to bring the Titans within one point, but the failed two-point conversion gifted the Chargers the victory.
As a result, Tennessee falls to 3-4 while the surging Chargers nail down their fourth successive win. The Chargers, with an archetypal gunslinger in Rivers, quietly putting together an MVP-level season, may just be eyeing a first postseason appearance since 2013.