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The San Diego Chargers may be in a similar situation as they have been over the past couple of seasons. However, many people don’t seem to be noticing it. The Chargers have entered the past few NFL seasons as the favorite of many folks to make, or even win, the Super Bowl. They’ve come up short in those regards, so much so last year that they finished 9-7 and didn’t even make the playoffs. That finish has many prognosticators leaving the Chargers out of their Super Bowl picks. Not the Predictalator, however, at.
And probably not the Chargers themselves, either, who are just fine with flying under the preseason radar. San Diego quarterback Philip Rivers joined XX Sports Radio in San Diego with Darren Smith to discuss ESPN’s new quarterback rating, if he has any problem with where he fell in the rankings, if too much is put into statistics, the Chargers’ turnover woes last season, why he likes flying under the radar and the feeling of getting back into game action.
What are your thoughts on ESPN’s new total quarterback rating:
“I don’t take too much stock into that, but I did see it, though. I still don’t get it. I think it’s more complicated now. I got to the point where you could almost know what the rating would be based on what you play. Now I don’t know. They’re judging situation of the game and what impact that throw had and this throw, yards after catch. It’s crazy. I’m not saying it didn’t make sense.”
Did you agree with the way their ratings came out?:
“It shuffled some guys around. It’s not like it told a complete different story than the other quarterback ranking. And I couldn’t tell you exactly where I ended up.”
Do we tend to put too much into statistics?:
“I think the number one stat that is a direct correlation on winning and losing is turnovers. I think if you looked at that one stat over the years, every game we played, if we don’t turn it over or we win the turnover battle I would say we win over 90 percent of the time.”
You guys had some trouble in that area last year:
“In the first like six or seven weeks, we almost turned it over as many times as we did the whole previous season when we were 13-3. There’s not many times you can turn it over three or four times in a game and win and we almost won some of those games. It shows how well we were playing except for those critical errors.”
Why do you like flying under the radar?:
“I just think it’s a different avenue for this team than year’s past. We’ve always been caught up in all the hype. I don’t mean we’ve gotten caught up in it, we’ve been in the hype. We’ve been picked to be Super Bowl favorites all offseason long. With us going 9-7 and not making the playoffs in addition to the lockout, we’ve kind of been the forgotten-about team out here and I think it’s been good for us.”
How good did it feel to get back out there on the field?:
“It was good. It’s always good to get back in game action. I woke up that morning and actually texted my dad and said, ‘I’m nervous, but I like it. It’s a good nervous.’ It was fun to get back on the field again and it even makes you more eager for Sept. 11 to get here in a hurry.”
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