Philip Rivers Inks New 6 Year Deal With Chargers

NFL News - August 25th, 2009 - Written by Scott

San Diego quarterback Philip Rivers is coming off his best season as an NFL quarterback and the Chargers have rewarded him with a 6 year contract extension.  This deal, worth $92 million and $38.5 million guaranteed, will keep him out of the free agent market following this season. It will also preclude San Diego from having to exercise a franchise designation to keep him. Rivers, who has thrown for over 10,000 yards in his career, only lacks one thing.  Of the big three quarterbacks drafted in 2004, Eli Manning and Ben Roethlisberger are the only two with Super Bowl rings.  Manning led his Giants to a Super Bowl win two years later and Roethlisberger led the Steelers to their win in February.  After playing the back up role to Drew Brees, Rivers locked up the starting role in 2006 and led the Charges to AFC Title game following the 2007 season.  This contract extension also will keep him up to par finacially with Manning and Roethlisberger.  Manning earlier this year signed a 6 year deal worth $97.5 million and in 2008, Roethlisberger signed his 8 year extension worth $107 million.

Rivers and Manning will forever be linked.  Before the 2004 draft, the Manning family asked Chargers General Manager A.J. Smith not to draft Eli as the first overall pick that year.  However, he did anyway and the end result was him being traded to the New York Giants for Rivers, the fourth overall pick out of North Carolina State.  This decision has turned out to be a great move for the Charger organization.  Throughout his career, Rivers has 10697 passing yards to accompany his 78 touchdowns.

Rivers has his best year in 2008 with 4,009 passing yards and 34 touchdowns to tie Drew Brees and break Hall of Famer Dan Fouts' Chargers record.  In addition, he also led the NFL with a 105.5 passer rating and joined Fouts as the only quartebacks in franchise history to throw for over 4,000 yards.  The future looks bright for the San Diego Chargers and a Super Bowl appearance will hopefully come soon.  Rivers stated he feels that there is no pressure added however. "I don't think there can be any more pressure added, commitment added, determination from my side or from anybody in that locker room to want to go win a championship," he said. "There's no outside or monetary driving force that can make me want to win any worse than I do. I've always hated losing and don't know if I can hate it any more, so there's really nothing that can give me any extra drive."

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