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I took a look at our 2019 season and I see a few things that probably cost us. One thing that goes unmentioned is the fact that Rivers didn’t play much at all during pre-season games. Sure, he has scrimmages but they purposefully kept his snap count extremely low for the four pre-season games. I’m not sure how much that matters, but it must mean SOMETHING... otherwise why would they do it? And what were the results for him on the field? Correlation or outlier?
I saw 5 games this year that were directly Rivers’ fault. It wasn’t every game for sure.
I could list those 5 losses and break down my opinions but it’s subjective in some regards anyhow. I’d argue games with more than a single INT or no TD passes are critical. Either way, he isn’t responsible for 11 losses. For example, still fresh in our minds, yesterday’s loss wasn’t 100% on him.
Our receivers had had plenty of drops this year. Patton epitomizes “suck”. Why we kept forcing him the ball so much I’ll never know.
But I see something alarming that can’t be ignored either.
His biggest scoring output was a 3 TD game against JAX.
He averaged less than 2 passing TD a game down the stretch where he had Keenan Allen, Mike Williams, Hunter Henry, Austin Ekeler and Melvin Gordon. Let that sink in. To average under 2 TD a game is criminal.
Our defense didn’t create enough turnovers. Our defense lost us some games. But in at least a few of those games Rivers should’ve had a blowout performance to overcome that. Rivers’ last 4+ TD performance was 2016 (had two games w/ 4 TDs that season).
At some point we need to see Rivers taking control of games and making things happen. I’m tired of excuses. I don’t excuse Bosa and Supa when they have games where they aren’t creating havoc. They’ve been ghosts at times too. At least what most fans should see as flat performances.
But this is about Rivers. And while he isn’t responsible for 11 losses, he’s 100% not blameless and a little better play this year gets us in the post season no doubt.
The common argument is the OL. This is supported by the fact that we had the 28th ranked rushing attack with Gordon, Ekeler, Jackson. A fine trio that reminds me some of Tomlinson, Sproles, Turner in terms of depth and diversity in one group. Early in the season with Pouncey under C we seemed to run the ball better than as the season went along. And there was a definite negative bump when Gordon came back and struggled for the first 4 games IIRC.
But we were 6th in passing yards. We moved the ball, just didn’t score. 7-8 red zone Rivers turnovers didn’t help. I think if not mistaken he led the league in that category.
Either he’s one of the very best QBs to never win a ring, or he’s a regular season stat machine, playoffs choker and ready to be someone else’s problem.
I’m mixed. I hate that Joe Flacco got a ring and Big Ben and Eli both have 2, but Rivers never did. He’s a better QB than any of those three. But Flacco had perhaps the best postseason of any QB in league history when he won his ring. He showed up at crunch time and balled the hell out.
Rivers rarely has.
Times like “Philcember” and hyped up media spouting, “Chargers are the team nobody wants to see in January” are long gone in the rear-view.
And while I appreciate and agree that he feels “he’s given all he possibly can”, I’d argue that’s most NFL players and just because you gave us all, doesn’t mean it was enough.
I saw 5 games this year that were directly Rivers’ fault. It wasn’t every game for sure.
I could list those 5 losses and break down my opinions but it’s subjective in some regards anyhow. I’d argue games with more than a single INT or no TD passes are critical. Either way, he isn’t responsible for 11 losses. For example, still fresh in our minds, yesterday’s loss wasn’t 100% on him.
Our receivers had had plenty of drops this year. Patton epitomizes “suck”. Why we kept forcing him the ball so much I’ll never know.
But I see something alarming that can’t be ignored either.
His biggest scoring output was a 3 TD game against JAX.
He averaged less than 2 passing TD a game down the stretch where he had Keenan Allen, Mike Williams, Hunter Henry, Austin Ekeler and Melvin Gordon. Let that sink in. To average under 2 TD a game is criminal.
Our defense didn’t create enough turnovers. Our defense lost us some games. But in at least a few of those games Rivers should’ve had a blowout performance to overcome that. Rivers’ last 4+ TD performance was 2016 (had two games w/ 4 TDs that season).
At some point we need to see Rivers taking control of games and making things happen. I’m tired of excuses. I don’t excuse Bosa and Supa when they have games where they aren’t creating havoc. They’ve been ghosts at times too. At least what most fans should see as flat performances.
But this is about Rivers. And while he isn’t responsible for 11 losses, he’s 100% not blameless and a little better play this year gets us in the post season no doubt.
The common argument is the OL. This is supported by the fact that we had the 28th ranked rushing attack with Gordon, Ekeler, Jackson. A fine trio that reminds me some of Tomlinson, Sproles, Turner in terms of depth and diversity in one group. Early in the season with Pouncey under C we seemed to run the ball better than as the season went along. And there was a definite negative bump when Gordon came back and struggled for the first 4 games IIRC.
But we were 6th in passing yards. We moved the ball, just didn’t score. 7-8 red zone Rivers turnovers didn’t help. I think if not mistaken he led the league in that category.
Either he’s one of the very best QBs to never win a ring, or he’s a regular season stat machine, playoffs choker and ready to be someone else’s problem.
I’m mixed. I hate that Joe Flacco got a ring and Big Ben and Eli both have 2, but Rivers never did. He’s a better QB than any of those three. But Flacco had perhaps the best postseason of any QB in league history when he won his ring. He showed up at crunch time and balled the hell out.
Rivers rarely has.
Times like “Philcember” and hyped up media spouting, “Chargers are the team nobody wants to see in January” are long gone in the rear-view.
And while I appreciate and agree that he feels “he’s given all he possibly can”, I’d argue that’s most NFL players and just because you gave us all, doesn’t mean it was enough.
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