When Philip Rivers threw 17 interceptions in the first 10 games of last season, speculation grew that he was playing with an injury.
Rivers and the team denied it every time that it came up, but it never really went away because people were struggling to come up with another explanation for why a player without previous issues in that department was having such a hard time avoiding turnovers. The season is long over and we’ve heard other players talk about injuries they played through since the start of the offseason, but Rivers is sticking to his story.
“I was not hurt, and still don’t. I feel great,” Rivers said to XX Sports Radio in San Diego via SportsRadioInterviews.com. “It’s a compliment. It’s not true, but I appreciate that nobody thinks that I would throw 20 picks unless I was hurt, so I guess that’s a good thing.”
There were a variety of things to blame for the picks, from bad throws to tipped balls to poor plays by receivers, but they ultimately fall on Rivers’ shoulders. The same was true of Eli Manning in 2010 when he threw 25 picks that could be explained away thanks to mistakes by others on the Giants. He got all the credit when that number dropped to 16 and the Giants went to the playoffs this season.
If Rivers can follow the lead of the man he was traded for in 2004, the Chargers could see a similar turnaround.