Los Angeles Chargers: Thank you, Philip Rivers, from a lifelong fan

It has become official: the Los Angeles Chargers will have a different quarterback under center in 2020, ending a 16-year partnership with Philip Rivers.

Philip Rivers has been on the Los Angeles Chargers every single season of his 16-year career, taking over the starting job from Drew Brees in 2006. Since taking over the job, Rivers has started every single Charger game.

That means for the first time since December 2005, the Los Angeles Chargers will roll out a different starting quarterback, as both parties agreed to mutually part ways this offseason.

I am a relatively young writer, aged 21, and have grown up a Charger fan my entire life because of my dad’s diehard following of the team. Rivers is the only quarterback I can even remember. He was drafted when I was five, he started his first game when I was seven.

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And throughout elementary school, middle school, high school and college, Rivers has been the starting quarterback of the Los Angeles Chargers. Not only was he the starting quarterback, but he started every single game.

Rivers even trotted out in the 2008 AFC Championship Game with no LaDainian Tomlinson on a torn ACL. They lost to the New England Patriots, but the warrior inside of Rivers was showcased and many thought that he would be back there again.

He never was. That would be the closest that Rivers ever got to making the Super Bowl and the Chargers had some damn good teams in the 2000s as well. The 14-2 2006 team, in Rivers’ first year as a starter, was ruined by a missed Nate Kaeding field goal against, you guessed it, the Patriots.

Rivers once again lost LT in the playoffs in 2008, which would be the last 1,000-yard rushing season of his career. The team lost to the Pittsburgh Steelers in the Divisional Round.

The Chargers went 13-3 the following season and allowed the New York Jets to score 14 points in the fourth quarter after scoring three in the previous three quarters combined. The Chargers lost, and while they made the playoffs in 2013, it would be their last truly great team for almost another decade.

Then 2018 rolled around and this felt like the year. It felt like the year that Rivers would finally get vindicated. With a great team around him, Rivers finally had a chance of making that Super Bowl run that would define his career.

It started off great as the 12-4 Chargers not only beat the Baltimore Ravens in the Wild Card Round but thoroughly outplayed them for most of the game. Then, once again, the evil empire of the New England Patriots stood in the way.

Rivers had a good game, one of the best in his playoff career, throwing for 331 yards and three touchdowns. The problem was that the Patriots exposed the Chargers’ cover three defense and scored 35 points in the first half. That would be Rivers’ last playoff game as a Charger.

Now, Rivers enters a new chapter in his life and as a lifelong fan of Rivers, I would be lying if I said that I wasn’t rooting for him. Wherever he goes I hope they can supply him the one thing that has alluded him his entire career, even if it would be painful to see him win it in different colors.

Thank you, Philip Rivers. Thank you for 224 straight starts. Thank you for your competitiveness, your passion, your embodiment of the Chargers franchise. It is a shame that the team could never get it done, that the front office often built you more losers than winners, that every time things were going right something would go wrong.

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Philip Rivers accomplished almost everything with the Los Angeles Chargers and is undoubtedly the best quarterback in franchise history. Now, as fans, let’s root for him to cement his legacy in the league.

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