Philip Rivers’ Status for Next Season is Up in the Air

Former NC State Quarterback Philip Rivers just wrapped up his 16th season in the NFL, which have all been played for the Chargers.

Rivers just wrapped up the final year of a 4-year $83.25 million contract, and it wasn’t the shining moment of his career to say the least. His QB Rating of 88.5 for the year marked his second lowest single season rating of his career. His 23 passing touchdowns were the third lowest of his career, with the other two seasons being his first two. Rivers threw 20 interceptions for the 3rd time in his career.

It wasn’t all bad for the former ACC Player of the Year, throwing for 4,615 yards, which ranked 4th in the NFL at a 66.0% clip, which ranked 10th.

Rivers has no plan to retire, but he doesn’t know for sure that he will be back with the Bolts in 2020.

“Yeah, I plan to play football, so yeah,” Rivers said. “Again, where that’s going to be, I think that’s going get sorted out over the next three months, I guess. I’ve never been in this position. I usually don’t even know when the league year starts and when all those things are. We’ll just kind of see. Again, I’m very thankful for 16 years, and if there’s another, I’ll be thankful for that one. But I think just with the uncertainty just comes that unknown.” (NBC)

Chargers GM Tom Telesco hasn’t ruled out the return of Rivers in 2020.

“In a perfect world, No. 17 is your quarterback forever,” Telesco says. “I hope that I’m not offending Dan Fouts when I say that. [Rivers] has meant everything to this organization. You work with different players differently. He has been here for a long time. When I talk with him, he’s a joy to work with. Nobody has a better perspective on what goes on — not only just with him, but with the football team — than he does.”

“I think Philip would say the same thing, there are some plays that he probably definitely wants back, but there are also some throws that he makes still that a lot of quarterbacks in this league can’t make,” Telesco says. “It doesn’t matter how old you are. I think he can still compete at a top-starter level.”

“We need to get removed from the season a little bit,” Telesco says. “Even, right now it’s just way too early. I’ve been out at a couple of games. We just finished the season. We need to take a step back for a little bit of time. We have time. The first day of the league year is March 18. Our players come in April 20. Camp starts in July. We’ll know before July, obviously, but you need some time to kind of let things decompress a little bit.” (SI)

Some NFL Executives speculate that Rivers could end up in Indianapolis, taking the job of another former Wolfpack Quarterback Jacoby Brissett.

NFL executives, via ESPN’s Jeremy Fowler, believe that the Colts would explore the option of bringing in Chargers quarterback Philip Rivers if he and the Chargers part ways this offseason. The reasoning is based on Rivers’ past history with Colts head coach Frank Reich, who was the Chargers’ quarterbacks coach during the 2013 season. (CBS)