There have been a lot of assumptions that the marriage between the Chargers and quarterback Philip Rivers is coming to an end after moving his family out of their home in San Diego.
But the decision on whether or not Rivers is going to return in the blue and gold has yet to be made.
General manager Tom Telesco said in an interview on Sirius XM NFL Radio that he believes that the 38-year old still has some juice to continue to play, but there are some factors into the decision-making, including having some of their own free agents to sign.
Well he’s a free agent so there’s a lot of moving parts that come with that. He among some other free agents that we have. I said after the season that we didn’t have the best year, obviously. We had five wins, so that wasn’t good enough. Didn’t make the playoffs and had a rough year but Philip still has good snaps in him. I think I can see that, I think everybody can see that. He still has some good snaps. He didn’t play his best in every game but guess what, our team didn’t play its best in every game either. We only had five wins. I think he still has plenty of good snaps in him but like I said, he’s a free agent. So there’s a lot of moving parts that go with that.
We have a lot of other guys that are free agents. We have to try to put together the best team we can for next year with a lot of different things. But the good thing is we have some time to get this worked out. After the season ended, we took a step away to kind of gather our thoughts, watch some more tape. We’re going to need some time with this to try to make it right, make sure its the right decision you’re making in the offseason because it’s going to affect you into the regular season.
Rivers is coming off a year where he tossed 20 interceptions and committed 23 turnovers. Even though he was plagued by inconsistency on the offensive line, his arm strength and decision-making was still questionable, which has had many believe that his time with the organization is nearing an end.
Rivers’ decision to move out of Southern California may be an indicator that he already has another path in mind. But we won’t know until it’s actually official. From Telesco end-of-the-season press conference, he would like to have a decision made before free agency begins in the middle of March.