They say that you can’t teach old dogs new tricks, but Chargers coach Mike McCoy clearly doesn’t believe that 31-year-old quarterbacks qualify as old dogs.
In an interview for Monday Morning Quarterback on SI.com, McCoy told Peter King that he believes Philip Rivers is capable of becoming a more accurate quarterback than he’s been over the course of his career. When it comes to completion percentage, Rivers’ best single-season mark is 66 percent and he’s completed 63.6 percent of his throws over the course of his entire career but McCoy believes that Rivers can connect on 70 percent of his throws in the 2013 season.
Per King, McCoy will stress to Rivers that the quarterback needs to trust that the system will provide him with “a myriad of answers” on passing plays. Those answers will include shorter, more conservative throws than the ones that Rivers has tried to fit into small windows on the way to throwing 35 interceptions over the last two seasons. McCoy feels like Rivers has the skills to pull off the change and that the quarterback will be a willing participant in what McCoy hopes to do.
“I’ve been blown away by his anticipation and willingness to learn,” McCoy said.
Hitting 70 percent might be difficult, but cutting down on the deep throws into tight spots should bring the interception total down. Doing that would, in turn, lead to a more efficient offense even if Rivers is still completing the same number of passes that we’ve grown accustomed to seeing over his time in San Diego.