Rank QB's

[bwgood77]

I just now realized my typo

Finally someone rates my qb fairly high and they can't get his first name right. At least you didn't call Brady Marcia.

I always felt that PHIL Rivers was a beast & a Top 10 QB. I've had him on my fantasy team the past couple years. Yes he has been unfortunate with not so great offensive line & a run game since LaDanian Tomlinson, but the man can throw the football & is tough as nails. I silently root for him except when he plays Seattle (which I know last time Antonio Gates torched them with 3 or 4 touchdowns & it was hot as heck).

Yes, that was a great game. They nearly beat AZ (should have but lost 18-17) the prior game that year to start 2-0 against a couple of tough teams.

[Cactus Jack]

Finally someone rates my qb fairly high and they can't get his first name right. At least you didn't call Brady Marcia.

I always felt that PHIL Rivers was a beast & a Top 10 QB. I've had him on my fantasy team the past couple years. Yes he has been unfortunate with not so great offensive line & a run game since LaDanian Tomlinson, but the man can throw the football & is tough as nails. I silently root for him except when he plays Seattle (which I know last time Antonio Gates torched them with 3 or 4 touchdowns & it was hot as heck).

Yes, that was a great game. They nearly beat AZ (should have but lost 18-17) the prior game that year to start 2-0 against a couple of tough teams.

The Chargers most years seem to underachieve. With Rivers, they should have a winning record. Is it coaching? Defense? I know they had a lot of injuries last year.

[bwgood77]

I always felt that PHIL Rivers was a beast & a Top 10 QB. I've had him on my fantasy team the past couple years. Yes he has been unfortunate with not so great offensive line & a run game since LaDanian Tomlinson, but the man can throw the football & is tough as nails. I silently root for him except when he plays Seattle (which I know last time Antonio Gates torched them with 3 or 4 touchdowns & it was hot as heck).

Yes, that was a great game. They nearly beat AZ (should have but lost 18-17) the prior game that year to start 2-0 against a couple of tough teams.

The Chargers most years seem to underachieve. With Rivers, they should have a winning record. Is it coaching? Defense? I know they had a lot of injuries last year.

When they had a fairly stacked team with Tomlinson, Jackson, and some pro bowl offensive lineman, as well as a pretty good defense and Schottenheimer, he gradually made them better every year until Rivers' first year and they got to 14-2 and the #1 seed, but they barely blew a 2nd round playoff game to the Pats with a couple of costly miscues and a missed FG at the end (Nate Kaeding cost them at least 3 playoff games including one from a couple years before that).

For whatever reason, Marty got fired (oh yeah, disagreement between him and big headed GM AJ Smith) and made the horrible hire of Norv Turner. It wasn't Marty's fault Kaeding missed game winning field goals.

Anyway, Norv slightly made them worse, but the next year they still made the AFC Championship game and lost to the Pats, though Rivers was hopping around on a torn ACL the whole game (that win by the Patriots made them 18-0 that year before they met Giants).

Following year in the playoffs they beat the Colts and lose to the Steelers in the 2nd round. Steelers won SB that year.

Following year they finish 13-3 and get a bye but lose by 3 in a game against the Jets where Kaeding missed 3 field goals, one at the end.

After that, Tomlinson retired, as did a couple of their pro bowl lineman, Vincent Jackson left, and they hovered around 500 for three years hanging onto Norv for too long.

After hiring McCoy a couple years ago, he gets them back to the playoffs and they upset the Bengals in the wildcard, but then lost to the 13-3 Broncos the year they got to the SB and got killed by the Hawks.

Then they went 9-7 barely missing the WC year before last and last year everything went wrong.

So for the most part, since Tomlinson, pro bowl linemen and then Vincent Jackson left, they have been hovering around 500, but they've never had a great defense (actually usually a bottom 10 defense), and their OL has sucked, which makes it hard for Rivers.

If Rivers has a good offensive line, regardless of almost anything else on the team, he can usually keep them in games. Now that they have added some weapons in recent years with Keenan Allen and hopefully Melvin Gordon, and made some additions to the OL, I expect their offense to click pretty well. They also have some good backup and/or 3rd down running backs in Danny Woodhead and Branden Oliver.

They also added a good deep threat in Travis Benjamin (Rivers will love him) and some decent James Jones and Javonteen Herndonn. Those two guys are actually third on the depth chart on each side behind some younger guys you've likely never heard of playing well in camp.

The biggest reason that might make it tough to do well this year though is how tough the division is.

[Cactus Jack]

Yes, that was a great game. They nearly beat AZ (should have but lost 18-17) the prior game that year to start 2-0 against a couple of tough teams.

The Chargers most years seem to underachieve. With Rivers, they should have a winning record. Is it coaching? Defense? I know they had a lot of injuries last year.

When they had a fairly stacked team with Tomlinson, Jackson, and some pro bowl offensive lineman, as well as a pretty good defense and Schottenheimer, he gradually made them better every year until Rivers' first year and they got to 14-2 and the #1 seed, but they barely blew a 2nd round playoff game to the Pats with a couple of costly miscues and a missed FG at the end (Nate Kaeding cost them at least 3 playoff games including one from a couple years before that).

For whatever reason, Marty got fired (oh yeah, disagreement between him and big headed GM AJ Smith) and made the horrible hire of Norv Turner. It wasn't Marty's fault Kaeding missed game winning field goals.

Anyway, Norv slightly made them worse, but the next year they still made the AFC Championship game and lost to the Pats, though Rivers was hopping around on a torn ACL the whole game (that win by the Patriots made them 18-0 that year before they met Giants).

Following year in the playoffs they beat the Colts and lose to the Steelers in the 2nd round. Steelers won SB that year.

Following year they finish 13-3 and get a bye but lose by 3 in a game against the Jets where Kaeding missed 3 field goals, one at the end.

After that, Tomlinson retired, as did a couple of their pro bowl lineman, Vincent Jackson left, and they hovered around 500 for three years hanging onto Norv for too long.

After hiring McCoy a couple years ago, he gets them back to the playoffs and they upset the Bengals in the wildcard, but then lost to the 13-3 Broncos the year they got to the SB and got killed by the Hawks.

Then they went 9-7 barely missing the WC year before last and last year everything went wrong.

So for the most part, since Tomlinson, pro bowl linemen and then Vincent Jackson left, they have been hovering around 500, but they've never had a great defense (actually usually a bottom 10 defense), and their OL has sucked, which makes it hard for Rivers.

If Rivers has a good offensive line, regardless of almost anything else on the team, he can usually keep them in games. Now that they have added some weapons in recent years with Keenan Allen and hopefully Melvin Gordon, and made some additions to the OL, I expect their offense to click pretty well. They also have some good backup and/or 3rd down running backs in Danny Woodhead and Branden Oliver.

They also added a good deep threat in Travis Benjamin (Rivers will love him) and some decent James Jones and Javonteen Herndonn. Those two guys are actually third on the depth chart on each side behind some younger guys you've likely never heard of playing well in camp.

The biggest reason that might make it tough to do well this year though is how tough the division is.

It just seems weird that they are 9-7 or 7-9 most years. Like you say, that offense is usually pretty good. Underrated in fact. Antonio Gates has been a stud for a long time. Decent running game. I guess they need to focus on fixing the defense. Maybe bring in a defensive head coach.

[bwgood77]

It just seems weird that they are 9-7 or 7-9 most years. Like you say, that offense is usually pretty good. Underrated in fact. Antonio Gates has been a stud for a long time. Decent running game. I guess they need to focus on fixing the defense. Maybe bring in a defensive head coach.

They just haven't had good defensive players. Their secondary was either awful or really banged up lately, but they have used some high picks on defensive players in the last few years with Joey Bosa, Manti Teo, Jason Verrett, Jerry Attaochu and Melvin Ingram and signed Brandon Flowers, a pretty good cb. It's getting better, but KC and DEN have such great defenses, particularly pass rushers that the only way SD has a chance against them is if Rivers has enough time to get rid of the ball, so they keep having to mostly focus on the OL. Oakland's also had so many high picks in the last 10 years that they have been stockpiling talent and finally have a good coach.

[ErnieDiGregorio]