Rivers takes on mantle of being The Man in S.D.

From the man who for so long has been The Man, who has been best when he needed to be, has been the face and the force and the barometer of the franchise, comes this passing of the torch.

“He's the main reason why we're at this position right now,” LaDainian Tomlinson said. “He's played well all season long, and we've just been riding his back, and he's been carrying us.”

Tomlinson was speaking this week of Philip Rivers and the Chargers quarterback's mostly wondrous 2008.

Not always in agreement with the shifting of an offense, Tomlinson nonetheless knows who made the Chargers go this season.

Rivers was not perfect in 2008, but he was all he had to be. And if he weren't, there is no way the Chargers are in the playoffs.

“He's done everything we needed him to do to get us to this point,” said receiver Vincent Jackson, fresh off his first 1,000-yard season.

In a furious four-game finish to get them to today's AFC wild-card playoff game against the Indianapolis Colts, the Chargers went undefeated as Rivers completed 80 of his 121 passes for 1,054 yards and 11 touchdowns while being intercepted once. Rivers' passer rating in that time was 120.3, second only to Indianapolis QB Peyton Manning's 130.8 rating over that span.

Manning yesterday was named the NFL's Most Valuable Player for the third time. Rivers received two votes from a nationwide panel of 50 sportswriters and broadcasters.

Earlier this week, without addressing the MVP topic specifically, Rivers talked about how a quarterback should be assessed.

“Wins are the measure – and playoffs,” he said. “I would much rather make a run in the playoffs than go 14-2 and get knocked out in the first round. I don't know about struggling and going 8-8 and finding a way to get in the playoffs, but I'd much rather do well in the playoffs.”

Speaking of which, Rivers knew the Chargers would be here. Maybe he's that confident; maybe he and his team got lucky. Maybe both.

But it's a fact that five weeks ago, after the Chargers had fallen to 4-8, Rivers wrote on the white board in the quarterbacks meeting room: “8-8 will be enough. Book it.”

He did his part.

Where in October and November, Rivers made mistakes that ended up being costly – and when your team is losing eight games by a total of 34 points, almost every mistake is costly – he seemed almost incapable of erring in December.

He was smart about his throws, found receivers and protected the ball.

“When you're playing that position, everything is not going to go great for you,” coach Norv Turner said. “ . . . His (mistakes) have come at inopportune times because our games are so close.

“He has confidence in his ability; he has confidence in what we're doing. He does a great job of starting over the next week and not being affected by what happened on Sunday. That is really hard for all quarterbacks and particularly hard for a young quarterback.”

While having just completed his fifth NFL season, 2008 was only Rivers'third as a starter.

Rivers is young enough, in fact, to have served as a camp counselor in 2003 at the quarterback camp of one Peyton Manning, who at that point had completed his fifth season and won his first MVP award.

Rivers was then and now is a fan of Manning.

“I don't know if star-struck is the word, but he was certainly one of my favorites,” Rivers said. “He still is. Just this year, watching him hit his first 17 against Jacksonville, shoot, I'm not ashamed to say I'd rewind and look at his good throws.”

Manning is an admirer of Rivers as well.

“I've known Philip since he was in college,” Manning said this week. “ . . . It's been fun watching him become one of the top quarterbacks.”

Through 48 career starts, Rivers' 93.5 passer rating, 2.2-to-1 touchdown-to-interception ratio, and 33-15 win-loss record are better than the 48-start marks of Manning, Brett Favre and Joe Montana.

Rivers believes he is just getting started, that since the middle of last November he has felt more comfortable. And in 26 regular-season and playoff games beginning with the Chargers' loss at Jacksonville on Nov. 18, 2007, Rivers' passer rating is 10 points higher than it was before that.

“That's when I felt like, 'Here we go,' ” he said. “Since then to now, sure there have been games you want back, throws you want back, but since then I've played at a more consistent level. Week to week I see things I'm doing better. I'm doing them over and over.

“I'm a better player this year than I've been the past two years, no question. You start to learn and see more. You've had so many reps, things you start to feel that you can't simulate unless you've done it.

“But it's hard to say that, because the ultimate measure is wins and losses.”


Source: signonsandiego.com