There’s no quit in Chargers’ Rivers
Philip Rivers has eight kids, and in the time it took to read that you should no longer be surprised that he and his wife are expecting a ninth. The Los Angeles Chargers quarterback is famously intense, and famously Catholic, to the point where after the Chargers moved from San Diego to L.A. he decided he would rather commute, because if you have ever had to consider pulling six or seven of your children out of school — the seventh, Clare, was born in 2013 — you wouldn’t want to move, either.
You might not want to do anything, actually, other than just lie down and close your eyes and be allowed to sleep in forever. Rivers’ eldest child is 16 and his youngest is 2 or 3 and it must all be just exhausting.
But Rivers won’t stop. He hasn’t missed a game since becoming a full-time starter in 2006, though he’s perpetually The Other Guy in a generation defined by better quarterbacks. Rivers has finished in the top 10 in passing touchdowns and passing yards in 11 of those 13 seasons, but has only led the league once in either category. He’s only been in the top 10 in passer rating seven times, and has only led it in efficiency once. He’s led the league in interceptions twice.
Rivers is eighth all-time in passing yards, sixth in TDs, eighth in passer rating, just 44th in interceptions, but he’s that other guy, and his chances at an Eli Manning-esque burst of playoff glory have been few and far between. The last time Rivers was in the playoffs Colin Kaepernick was going 12-4 and beating Aaron Rodgers and Cam Newton in playoff games.
Meanwhile, Rivers’s five career playoff losses were to Tom Brady, Tom Brady on the road in a game Rivers was playing without his star running back and with a torn ACL, Mark Sanchez — that one hurts — Ben Roethlisberger and Peyton Manning. Rivers beat Manning twice in the playoffs, and lost to Brady by a field goal the other time, in a classic Patriots comeback, and a classic Chargers collapse.
And now, the Chargers are 11-3 after beating Kansas City in a stunning comeback Thursday night, with their only losses to Kansas City, the Rams and Denver in a classic Chargers kicker whoopsie. The Chiefs have the tiebreak, but Kansas City has to go to Seattle next week, and maybe Philip Rivers, at age 39, has his best chance ever. And if he does, it’s because he’s just kept going, like Drew Brees, like Brady, like Roethlisberger, like Peyton did, like Eli has.
The difference is he’s done it while cranking out kids every two years or so, and now by commuting from San Diego to L.A. in a custom SUV that he turned into a film room so he can get home in time for dinner. Maybe he and his wife have nannies and all the advantages of wealth. But I have a mere four children between 3 and 9 years old, and early on, when the twins took turns not sleeping for several months, I looked at my wife and told her, this is how people get oldperson faces. I have fallen asleep while reading books to the children: I keep talking, but the words I speak have no relation to the words printed on the page. I have decided parenting is partly about find- ing out how tired you can get before you crash the car.
But Philip Rivers has a driver, and is still fist-pumping and yelling and giving himself a chance. He will have to beat some combination of Brady or Patrick Mahomes or Roethlisberger or someone to reach a Super Bowl; the Chargers have a history of collapsing, but this is a new year. The lesson of Philip Rivers is simple: keep trying, and you might succeed.
Last week this space went 5-11, and is gradually settling back toward .500. As always, all lines could change.